Waitrose best supermarket to work for, Iceland is the worst — say employees

Which supermarkets offer the best deal for workers, not just shoppers?

We use the responses from the 440,000+ people like you who've told us about their jobs when they've taken the Breakroom Quiz.

In this post, we’ll share what we’ve learnt from them about the best and worst supermarkets, and reveal where you should work to get the best deal.

Here's what we'll go over:

Supermarket employees have compared their jobs on Breakroom

And what they’re saying about their jobs shows there are surprising differences between the big brands.

When workers compare their job, we ask them a range of questions about what really matters at work. Everything from ”are your breaks paid?”, to ”are you treated with respect by your managers?”, and many more besides.

We use the answers to these questions to give each company a score, creating what we call the Breakroom Rating. This is what we use to rank the quality of jobs at each supermarket company.

You can search for supermarket jobs by visiting HERE. Find the right job by filtering jobs by what matters to you 🫵 Things like do they pay breaks? Are all ages are paid the same? and how much notice do you get for your shifts?

Aren’t all supermarket jobs the same?

Everyone thinks they know what it must be like to work at a supermarket.

We all use them on a daily basis, and hundreds of thousands of people work in them. Tesco alone employs over 300,000 people, making it the country’s biggest private employer.

But there are real differences between the major supermarkets, and not just in pay. We’ll unpack these below. But first, the results!

How did the supermarkets do?

Here’s our March 2020 list of the best supermarkets to work for, ranked from best to worst. The Breakroom Ratings are based on answers from 2,000 people currently working at these supermarkets:

Supermarket (January 2023 rank) Breakroom Rating (out of 10)
1) Waitrose & Partners 7.3
2) Aldi 7.1
3) Sainsbury's 6.6
=4) Co-op Food 6.3
=4) Company Shop 6.3
=4) Tesco 6.3
7) Booths 6.2
8) Marks & Spencer 6.1
9) Lidl 5.8
10) Eurospar 5.7

The results might have changed since, so take a look at our guide to the best supermarket jobs for the latest.

Waitrose ranks top whilst Iceland languishes at the bottom

Let’s start with the really obvious. The winners and the losers, Waitrose & Partners and Iceland. 

To start with, the biggest differences are revealed by if they pay a living wage.

At Waitrose & Partners, 93% of people say they are paid at or above the Real Living Wage for where they live. Whilst at Iceland 69% of people say they are paid below the Real Living Wage for where they live.

You don't do any unpaid extra work at Waitrose

80% of workers at Waitrose & Partners report that they don’t do extra unpaid work. Whilst, 54% of Iceland staff told us that they do extra work that they don’t get paid for.

Aldi is better if you have kids

Lastly, the most striking difference is how easy it is for each company’s employees to fit work around kids or other caring duties.

73% of workers at Waitrose & Partners who care for kids or other relatives say that it’s a good place to work. At Iceland only 46% of employees with caring responsibilities say the same.

How do the rest of the supermarkets differ?

The difference between the top and bottom of the list is clear, but the supermarkets in the middle are closely spaced.

It’s harder to tell who’s good at what.

We’ll dig a little deeper into the rest of the supermarkets to find out, but first, let me explain what you can find out on Breakroom.

Every company has a page showing details of their pay, hours, benefits, and what workplaces are like.

For example, on the Aldi page, you can see that “people say this is a good place to work if you care for a child or other relative”. And it’s all based on information from company employees.

OK let’s get back to examining what we've discovered from supermarket workers. But if you’d prefer, skip this and find out how your job compares with supermarket jobs by taking our survey now.

Not everyone has good managers

  • If you want managers that treat you with respect and don’t change your shifts at short notice, then Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, and Co-op Food are best for you.

  • Most Co-op Food employees (73%) say they’re treated with respect by their managers. This puts them above both Tesco (67%) and Sainsbury’s (36%).

  • Lidl is a mixed bag. Most employees feel they’re treated with respect. But over half say their manager changes their shift schedule at the last minute.

  • Less than half of Asda employees say their managers treat them with respect. Which is one of the lowest of all the supermarkets. But on the upside, most Asda employees don’t don't worry about getting enough hours.

Most people are getting enough hours

One big positive across all the supermarkets is that few people are worried about getting enough hours each week. Not all hourly paid work is as secure.

Premium supermarkets aren’t so premium for their employees

It’s fair to say that most of us would assume that premium brands treat their employees better, but our survey reveals that’s not always true.

  • At Marks and Spencer just under a third of their workforce get one week or less notice of when their shifts will be (32%). It’s even worse at Tesco (41%).

  • Under half of Waitrose workers (38%) say that their manager gives them enough choice over shifts.

  • Waitrose is also the hardest place to swap shifts when needed. Less than a third of their employees said that it’s easy to do. Things are almost as bad at Iceland and Morrisons. All other supermarkets in our list make it easier for workers to have control over their shift schedule.

What supermarket workers say about their jobs — in their own words

Here are a few examples of what people are saying in their job comparison: 

👍 Best thing about their job

Spending time outside

Most customers are pleasant

👎 Worst thing about their job

Short time schedules with no room for delays, poor planning and job could be made smoother with better scheduling.

— Customer delivery driver, with 3+ years experience at Waitrose. See more

👍 Best thing about their job

The pay and flexibility.

👎 Worst thing about their job

Progression, pulling the weight of other staff, booking of all holidays has to be done before the new year.

— Store assistant, with 3+ years experience at Aldi. See more

👍 Best thing about their job

Serving some lovely customers!

👎 Worst thing about their job

Hours can be apawling sometimes which can be very sole destroying and makes my mental health bad!!!

— Check out assistant and cleaning operative, with 1–2 years experience at Iceland. See more

Unfortunately, we’ve heard from employees at all the supermarkets that they feel like head office and upper management doesn’t understand their needs.

This comes up again and again when people tell us what’s worst about their job. There seems to be a lot of room for companies to improve this and to support their frontline workers better.

But there are positives too. A lot of supermarket workers love serving their customers and find the hours convenient.

We use the responses from the 440,000+ people like you who've told us about their jobs when they've taken the Breakroom Quiz. We include an estimated pay range for all jobs, even if the pay isn’t in the job advert you'll still have an idea of what you'll be earning. 

You can search for supermarket jobs by visiting HERE. Find the right job by filtering jobs by what matters to you 🫵 Things like do they pay breaks? Are all ages are paid the same? and how much notice do you get for your shifts?

* Our rankings are based on employers with over 30 Breakroom Quiz responses from employees at that employer. 

** All reviews, ratings, rankings and job postings are accurate as of the 24th of January 2023

Last updated on 28 February 2023