At least twelve Oxford colleges were not paying all staff the Oxford Living Wage (OLW) as of their most recent financial year, Cherwell can reveal. 

Balliol, Brasenose, Harris Manchester, Oriel, Regent’s Park, St Anne’s, St Catherine’s, St Edmund Hall, St Hilda’s, St Peter’s, Trinity, and Wolfson all paid their lowest-earning employees less than £13.16 per hour, the OLW set for 2025-26. Reuben has not yet responded to Cherwell’s Freedom of Information request. 

The OLW is a voluntary hourly rate, distinct from the government’s minimum, that, according to its website, reflects the “real cost of living and working in Oxford” – the UK’s secondmost expensive city. Introduced by Oxford City Council in 2018, the OLW is set at 95% of the London real Living Wage, a different hourly rate calculated by the Living Wage Foundation. 

The OLW stood at £13.16 per hour in 2025-26, rising to £14.06 per hour in April 2026-27. Meanwhile, in 2025-26, the UK real Living Wage sat at £12.60 per hour and the London real Living Wage at £13.85, before respectively increasing to £13.45 and £14.80 per hour for 2026-27.

In 2020, the University of Oxford committed to paying all staff at least the OLW. However, as Oxford colleges are independent employers, the University’s pledge did not extend to them. 

Among the twelve colleges that did not pay all staff the OLW, the share of staff receiving it varied. At St Peter’s and Wolfson, just 46% and 54% of staff were paid at least the OLW, while 98% of staff at St Catherine’s and Trinity were paid it. 

Who gets left out

The headline figure, however, obscures variations in pay across staff groups. Across the twelve colleges, academic and administrative staff were mostly paid at or above the OLW threshold. Pay below the OLW threshold was concentrated predominantly among casual employees – non-permanent employees typically without guaranteed hours – and, among them, those who work in catering, facilities/maintenance, and security. 

For instance, Wolfson paid casual security employees £12.21 per hour, but their full-time and part-time counterparts at least £15.55 per hour, with a ceiling of £21.68. At St Hilda’s, casual catering, facilities/maintenance, and security staff earned £12.60 per hour, even as equivalent permanent staff made at least the OLW of £13.16 – a difference of 56p per hour. 

Staff in catering, facilities/maintenance, and security were among the lowest-paid groups in 13 of the 20 colleges that provided sufficient data. For the remaining seven colleges, some administrative employees earned the same as, but not less than, catering, facilities/maintenance, or security staff. 

The colleges that did not pay all staff the OLW also tend to rely more on casual employees. For example, excluding St Catherine’s, which did not provide a full breakdown by contract type, the non-OLW colleges employ 321 of their 542 catering staff – 59% – on casual contracts. In comparison, among colleges that met OLW, 40% of catering staff are on casual contracts. The same colleges also employ 17% of their security on casual contracts, compared to 31% at colleges that do not pay the OLW. 

The casual hourly rate, moreover, does not capture the full extent of the pay gap. Cherwell’s data found that casual workers across a number of colleges are excluded from benefits above the statutory minimum. At St Hilda’s, for example, all staff but casual staff have access to free eye tests, healthcare, dental care, a contribution towards glasses, and a cycle scheme. 

Research by the Living Wage Foundation has found that casual and other insecure employees are as disproportionately likely to be younger, older, and from minority ethnic backgrounds. Accommodation and food services – the sector that most closely maps to college catering and facilities/maintenance work – also accounts for the second-highest percentage of insecure work in the UK. Cherwell does not hold data on the age or ethnic makeup of casual employees at Oxford colleges.

The bigger picture

Of Oxford’s 39 colleges and four permanent private halls (PPHs), 16 hold formal accreditation as OLW employers from Oxford City Council. Accreditation, which is overseen by the council, requires employers to pay all staff based in Oxford at least the OLW and implement the respective annual pay increases. Accredited employers are also listed publicly on the council’s website.

Beyond the 16 accredited employers, a further 15 colleges and PPHs pay all staff the OLW without formal accreditation. As a result, the number of collegiate OLW employers has grown more than fourfold since 2020, when Cherwell previously found just eight to be paying all staff the OLW, although that figure includes St Benet’s, a PPH which closed in 2022.

Several colleges also noted that, while they did not pay all staff the OLW, they met the threshold for all permanent employees. For instance, a spokesperson for Harris Manchester told Cherwell that the college has a “policy of paying the Oxford Living Wage for all full-time or part-time members of staff”. St Anne’s, St Catherine’s, and St Hilda’s referenced similar policies. 

More colleges also said they meet at least the real Living Wage threshold for all staff. A spokesperson for Regent’s Park told Cherwell the real Living Wage “is the minimum we pay to all staff, irrespective of contract type or age”. St Anne’s, St Edmund Hall, St Hilda’s, and St Peter’s likewise confirmed to pay all staff at least the real Living Wage. 

A spokesperson for Brasenose, meanwhile, told Cherwell that “the college is committed to ensuring that pay levels remain fair, competitive, and appropriate to the roles undertaken”, adding that it undertakes regular benchmarking and at least one salary review per year. “While not all roles may align precisely with the Oxford Living Wage”, the spokesperson told Cherwell, the college still provides “a range of additional benefits … that are highly valued by staff which go beyond basic pay”, including generous leave, pensions, and free lunches. 

Likewise, a spokesperson for Regent’s Park told Cherwell the college “places the highest value on its staff and recognises the essential contribution they make”, and that the college is “committed to fair pay for everyone who works here”. 

In response to Cherwell’s findings, Councillor Chewe Munkonge, Cabinet Member for a Healthy, Fairer Oxford, told Cherwell: “When employers commit to paying the Oxford Living Wage, they’re making a meaningful difference to the lives of thousands of local people and we want as many businesses as possible to sign up. 

“Many Oxford colleges are already accredited and, as major employers in our city, this is fantastic for the thousands of people working there. I would encourage any colleges that are contemplating it to speak to those already doing it or reach out to our team to find out more. Together, we can make Oxford a fairer city for everyone.”

Balliol, Harris Manchester, Oriel, St Edmund Hall, Trinity, and Wolfson were contacted for comment.

In the Northern Hemisphere, astronomers mark the beginning of spring on the date of the spring equinox. This year, it falls on the 20th of March. For Oxonians, spring begins in our liminal space, the strange weeks that fill our time between the end of Hilary term and the start of Trinity term. Despite leaving Oxford, some of us remain busy bees, revising away for collections or finishing dissertations. Others among us, despite having reading lists that are long enough to resemble shopping lists, are horrifically bored, burnt-out, and unable to look at anything resembling term-time work without feeling a little bit queasy. Although it is marketed to us as the time for new beginnings, spring can easily pass us by, all of us so desperate for summer that we charge through March and April without a second glance. 

While I, too, long for the warm weather that summer (sometimes) provides, spring is my favourite season and is severely underrated. I love it, not solely for its pink and yellow petals that fill my camera roll or the excuse it grants me to unfold my summer dresses and dungarees, but for its sheer reading potential. Summer is for lucrative lick-your-fingers romances, and winter all but possesses the fireplace mystery market. Spring and autumn are just too fleeting to wholly claim certain genres, and therefore every year holds the possibility of something new. Spring is especially unique as, in autumn, readers may find themselves returning to the nostalgic tenderness of the back-to-school narrative, squeezing in a read or two before winter takes hold. Spring lacks this definition, its potential, therefore, joyfully untapped and free for individual interpretation.

Upon coming home for the Hilary vacation, I returned to my childhood bedroom. It was in what can only be described as a state of chaos. I am an English student and have been collecting books since I was 13. It shows. Almost every inch of my room is covered in a paperback, a hardback, or the DVD of the film adaptation of my favourite book. Bookmarks are everywhere, reading journals sit precariously balanced on every edge, and, as I stood in the doorway, I silently cursed my January self for leaving my room like this.

In the name of spring cleaning, I sat down and decided to dedicate the following minutes, hours, and days to sorting my books, promising to keep only those that brought memories of a happy reading experience to mind. Despite being a self-proclaimed bookworm, I found that I hadn’t actually read many of them. Some were sequels I’d spent weeks waiting for, only for the special-edition hardbacks to accumulate dust behind books I had ordered for university classes. Some were classics I had loved the idea of reading, but their spines were ultimately left unbroken when I struggled with the language, the words left unannotated, unfelt. I found books that family members had recommended, had excitedly shared with the intention of communal discussion, simply waiting – the clearest signifier that the previous delight I took from reading had crumbled. Enough was enough. If spring was the time for new beginnings, I would begin again, too. Starting with my bookshelf.

Choosing to do an English degree as an avid reader can lead your love of reading to become irrevocably intertwined with stressful deadlines and job applications. It is easy to become distanced from the hobby, rejecting it over breaks in favour of anything else. My goal every new year is to fall back in love with reading. While January me certainly tried her best, it was this spring that I saw my resolution begin to take effect. I listened – because, yes, audiobooks do count! – to Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey as I browsed bookshops, pausing to take pictures of the poetry anthology I thought my best friend would enjoy. I missed my stop on the sun-drenched bus because I was so engrossed in the final pages of a play I was reading for pleasure. I finished the final chapter of my favourite comic – the one I had been reading since I was fourteen – tucked up in bed, birdsong quiet outside my bedroom window. 

Yet in this process, I often overlook the value of returning to how I first practised the art. With friends and family, squeezed between commuters on the bus, under the covers with a flashlight, stealing moments everywhere. When I was younger, I would carry my favourite books with me to school, not to read but to hold, a weight that kept me grounded as I navigated life as a 15-year-old girl. Before reading was productive or competitive, it was a haven, a comfort I yearn for now more than ever as I enter my twenties. Spring lacks a to-do list, lacks a checkbox of books to read before you miss their seasonal window, and it is kinder that way, more welcoming.

Spring is often swallowed in one quick gulp, dainty blossoms on trees appearing for what seems like milliseconds before waxy leaves take their place. For many of us, spring is small. It is a soft yawn, the world waking up and displaying a swift snippet of what’s to come in summer. Before spring leaves us behind for another year, I implore you to make reading a part of this transitional jubilation, a part of the first hike or the first ice cream. The assigned genre is anything that has gathered dust on your bookshelf or TBR, because reading is more joyful when the rules are bent, and you follow your own enjoyment. 

Or, as Jane Austen’s bookish heroine Catherine Moreland would say: “Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in reading it.”