Real Living Wage: Accredited!

By Paul McKay

We are delighted that our accreditation from the Living Wage Foundation has just come through!

What is the Real Living Wage?

Launched by Citizens UK in 2001, the Living Wage is an hourly rate, calculated according to cost of living in the UK. The UK Living Wage is currently £9.30 per hour. The London Living Wage is currently £10.75 per hour.

The calculation takes into account a basket of essential goods and services and provides the amount a worker should earn to give their family a basic but acceptable standard of living.

The following video goes into a bit more background:

Please note that the Real Living Wage should not be confused with the government-set 'Minimum Wage' or 'National Living Wage' which was launched in 2016 but is simply a rebranded Minimum Wage that applies to over-25s.

For reference the 2020 numbers are as follows:

You can read more about how the living wage is calculated from the Living Wage Foundation website.

What does it mean for AW to be accredited?

Accreditation requires that a business (Analogue Wonderland!) commits to paying the Real Living Wage to all staff and contractors within the organisation. We have also committed to implementing the annual calculated increase in Real Living Wage released November each year.

Speaking now on behalf of myself and Mary... this is an easy commitment for us to make.

Thanks to the support and trust from the film photography community, we have grown steadily since our launch in May 2018 to the point we're at now: running an office and warehouse and with several employees to help us fulfil orders and get your parcels of film sent off each day!

However we have not lost sight of the kind of business we always wanted to run: one that is passionate about its customers and its product (film = 😍) but also one that fits into our lives and allows us to balance hard work with family time and enjoying our hobbies.

This design principle carries forward into our contracts with our staff - we have paid the Real Living Wage from our very first permanent employee - and this accreditation from the Living Wage Foundation is now our formal commitment that it will be baked into our financial structure for as long as Analogue Wonderland is shipping film...hopefully for a very long time indeed!

Happy Shooting,
- Paul and Mary