Some 22,000 employees of Tesco are eligible for significant payouts from a windfall of £134million, the supermarket giant has announced. Thousands of staff, mainly in stores and distribution, are expected to make average profits of between £5,000 and £8,000 each from a share scheme run by the UK's largest retail business.

Tesco - which employs more than 300,000 people across the UK - runs one of the country's largest save-as-you-earn (SAYE) schemes, with different schemes maturing each year. This year has seen a particularly strong windfall for employee investors, driven by gains in Tesco's share price over recent years. Shares in the retail giant have risen by almost a quarter over the past year. The scheme has allowed employees to buy shares at a discount rate.

Workers can choose to either keep their shares for the long term or sell some or all of their shares to cash in on the windfall. It said that workers who invested the average £91 a month in Tesco's three-year scheme will have made a profit of £5,346.

Those who invested the average £94 a month in the five-year scheme will make a profit of £8,004.

Overall, employees could be in line for a total payout worth as much as £134million - more than four times the £30million profit shared by staff in 2024.

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Emma Taylor, Tesco chief people officer, said: "Our people are at the heart of everything we do and when we succeed, we want our colleagues to share in that success.

"Our frontline colleagues deliver for customers every single day, and we are delighted that our save-as-you-earn scheme is providing a really tangible reward for all their hard work, commitment and loyalty."

Elsewhere, supermarket vouchers worth up to £300 are being awarded to eligible households in one part of the UK from Wednesday, as part of the final round of funding from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The vouchers, which can be spent at nine major supermarkets including Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury's, are being supplied through the DWP's Household Support Fund, which is due to end on March 31. The scheme gives councils across England a share of a funding pot worth £ 742 million, and local authorities then independently decide how to share the cash.