Marks & Spencer (M&S) has denied claims by The Sunday Times that it has plans to cut hundreds of jobs at its London head office.

The High Street retailer hit back at newspaper, which reported at the weekend that the company would be axing roles as part of new reforms, describing the future of its head office as “in doubt”.

“It is simply inaccurate that hundreds of roles are being cut,” said a spokesperson from M&S. “As previously reported in October, we have said the lease on our London office ends in 2028 and that is a sensible time to think about the amount of space we have in London vs elsewhere.”

The comments come after M&S boss Stuart Machin said that he was unsure whether the retailer still needed to keep its head office in Paddington.

“We’ve got a chance over the few years ahead to plan for that — to have smaller hubs around the country and to do that in the most cost-efficient way, but also to do it where we can attract the best talent from across the whole of the UK,” he told The Sunday Times.

During the pandemic, M&S confirmed it would cut 7,000 jobs as part of restructuring plans.

The business axed roles across its stores, regional management and the support centre after the retailer experienced a “material shift” in trade due to coronavirus.

The redundancies followed 950 job cuts across its property and management teams.

M&S recently said it will invest £57 million in increasing pay for employees.

From 1 April, hourly pay will rise from £10.20 to £10.90 while employees working in London will see an increase to £12.05 from £11.25.

M&S claims that this pay increase is in line with or more than the real living wage and means that employees have seen a pay increase of 20 per cent over the past two years.

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