Low-paid jobs in London

This page looks at the proportion of jobs in London paid below the London Living Wage by:

• employment type (full-time and part-time)
• industry
• occupation
• borough

Here we focus on workplace based numbers. This means that jobs may be held by Londoners or by people who live elsewhere but commute into the capital. For data on jobs held by London residents only, please see 'Low-paid Londoners'.

Overall in 2022, over 14% of jobs in the capital were low-paid, down from 17% in 2021. 

The London Living Wage was introduced in 2005. It is a voluntary wage rate based on the amount of money that people need to live. The rate in London in April 2022 when the earnings survey we use for this analysis was conducted was £11.05. The number and proportion of low-paid jobs broadly rose for more than a decade since the London Living Wage was first introduced until 2018, when more than 1 in 5 jobs in the capital were low-paid (totalling 871,000 jobs in London). These low-paid jobs were divided almost equally between full and part-time. However as there are so many more full-time jobs overall, they represent very different proportions. In 2018, almost 1 in 2 part-time, but only over 1 in 8 full-time jobs, were low-paid. 

Since 2018, the number and the proportion of low-paid jobs has fallen. Compared to the 2018 highs, in 2022 there were nearly 300,000 fewer low-paid full-time jobs in London, meaning 7% of full-time jobs were low-paid. 100,000 fewer part-time jobs are low-paid in 2022 than 2018 - meaning nearly 4 in 10 part time jobs in London are now low-paid.

Nearly half of the jobs in 'accommodation and food service activities' are low-paid. By contrast, only around 1 in 10 jobs in 'human health and social work activities' pay below the London Living Wage. Additionally, a number of different industries grouped under the 'other' category, detailed in the chart notes, have a proportion of jobs paying below London Living Wage around 6%.

The overall volume of employment in each industry is also important in determining which industries have the highest shares of low-paid jobs in London. Although 'accommodation and food services activities' have a proportion of jobs paying below the London Living Wage twice as high as retail activities (wholesale and retail trade), they both concentrate around 20% each of all low-paid jobs in the capital. Human health and social work activities, on the other hand, despite a lower-than-average proportion of jobs paying below the London Living Wage, still concentrates around 10% of all the low-paid jobs in the capital.

Around 60% of elementary occupations are paid below London Living Wage. This is much higher than the 4% of technical, professional, scientific and managerial occupations that are low-paid. Sales and customer service occupations have the second highest low-pay rate of nearly 50%.

All types of occupations, except for technical, professional, scientific and managerial occupations, have an above-average proportion of jobs that are low-paid.

Differences in both the proportion of low-paid jobs and in the overall volume of jobs in each type of occupation help explain each occupation’s share of all low-paid jobs in the capital. Accordingly, more than 1 in 4 low-paid jobs in London are elementary occupations with the highest low-pay ratio, yet almost 1 in 5 are technical, professional, scientific and managerial occupations, despite its very low proportion of jobs paying below London Living Wage.

Boroughs in outer London tend to have significantly higher proportions of low-paid jobs than those in Inner London, although there are some exceptions. Richmond upon Thames and Kingston upon Thames, both in outer London, have below average proportion of jobs paid below London Living Wage, whereas the proportion of low-paid jobs for Lambeth in inner London, is above the London average.

Nevertheless, because of the large number of jobs in inner London, a high share of all low-paid jobs in the capital are concentrated there. For instance, 8% of low-paid jobs in London are in Westminster, the borough with the highest share, followed by Southwark, Hillingdon and Brent each with 4% shares.