Pret A Manger to give pay rise to 8,000 staff

Pret A Manger is to invest more than £9.2m in raising the pay of 8,000 of its 8,500 UK employees, the biggest increase in pay and benefits in its 36-year history.

From 1 April, the staff will see their pay increase from £9.40-9.56 per hour to between £9.80 and £10.15, with more than 6,900 employees receiving at least £10 per hour. Baristas will see pay increase from £9.88-10.08 to £10.30-11.05 per hour, depending on location and experience.

Pret's mystery shopper bonus will also increase by 25% to £1.25 per hour, recognising the "resilience, hard work and dedication" of its teams.

Pano Christou, chief executive of Pret, said: "At Pret, nothing is more important to our business than making sure our amazing people are properly rewarded around the world.

"We've said all along that as our business recovered, we wanted to invest back into our people. Today, as we move into a new phase of our transformation strategy, I'm really pleased we're in a position to do exactly that."

He added: "We've got big ambitions for Pret's future, and none of it would be possible without the hard work and commitment of our people. We hope that this announcement goes some way to thanking them for everything they've done over the course of pandemic – no one deserves it more."

In September 2021, Pret declared its ambition to double the size of the business and open more than 200 new stores in the UK within the next five years. The group said that although in-shop sales had fallen due to Omicron concerns, sales across other channels, including its coffee subscription, "performed strongly".

Pret runs approximately 550 shops across the UK, USA, France, Dubai and Hong Kong.

During 2020, after being hard hit by the pandemic, the chain underwent a restructure to reduce its cost base which included the closure of 39 Pret and 33 Eat-branded shops in the UK, with 3,771 redundancies. The company also reviewed staff benefits and temporarily scrapped its mystery shopper bonus.

It was reintroduced but at half its prior rate, though the business was forced to restore the full bonus following an outcry on social media.

Last year, Pret announced a 5% pay rise for all staff working in its UK shops from October, as well as plans to recruit 3,000 new team members.