The supermarket group will lift starting pay to £11.40 an hour nationally and to £12.85 in Greater London.

Depending on length of service, some staff could secure rates of up to £13.15 an hour. Retailers including Tesco have made similar moves recently as firms try to retain staff struggling with high living costs.

Earlier this month, Pret a Manger gave staff their third pay rise in a year.

The pay rise comes after recent data revealed there are more than one million job vacancies in the UK. This is below the peak of 1.2 million but still far higher than the number recorded before the start of the pandemic.

A spokesman for Aldi said the latest pay increase was in recognition of cost of living pressures as well as labour shortages.

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It said the new starting rates, which were increasing by 40p, were higher than the Real Living Wage of £10.90 per hour nationally and £11.95 in Greater London.