(Bloomberg) -- Tesco Plc plans to raise employee pay at more than double the rate of inflation as the battle to attract and retain staff among Britain’s biggest supermarkets intensifies.

Store workers will get a 9.1% raise to £12.02 ($15.30) per hour from April with staff in London receiving £13.15 an hour, the UK’s biggest grocer said Tuesday.

Tesco is the latest retailer to push up wages following a period of high inflation. Rival supermarket Asda said last week it plans to raise staff pay nationally to £12.04 an hour from July, while J Sainsbury Plc lifted its hourly rate to £12 this month, in its biggest-ever investment in pay.

The higher wages come before a new legal minimum wage of £11.44 an hour takes effect in April.

Tesco is the country’s biggest private sector employer and the increase in pay will add another £300 million to its wage bill. 

The negotiations “resulted in the largest investment in pay in a single year, with the highest entry rate for store employees of any major supermarket,” said Daniel Adams, national officer at shop workers’ trade union USDAW. He said about 220,000 Tesco staff in the UK will benefit from the rise.

Regulators are keeping a close eye on wage increases in the UK as continued escalation could make it harder to reduce wider inflation, even as energy and food prices ease. 

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