Who owns all these super lucrative nurseries in the UK?

[coxesorangepippin]

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Almost 50k per year to send a child to nursery?

Brother used to pay £50 a day, that's up North, and 8 years ago now.

Who is taking the profit from all these nurseries?

The nursery my DDs attended was cheaper than the local childminders!!

@janicegarvey we chose nursery over childminder primarily because if one person is ill, our son can still go to nursery. I don't have the flexibility at work to be able to take days off because a childminder is ill or on holiday or at a funeral or whatever which a single individual caring for your child puts you at risk of.
Plus I like knowing he's with other similar aged children and they have a wider variety of activities on offer.

The info on nurseries is likely to be on companies House.

Bigger nurseries like Busy bees will have their financial accounts on companies house. If it shows how much corporation tax they pay you can work out their net profit.

For us:

• longer hours, childminders only offered 8:30 to 5 which wasn't enough if commuting to London and back
• safeguarding: I feel safer knowing DD has multiple adults around. It's not foolproof, but I felt more comfortable knowing it's not just one adult I don't really know with her
• I wanted her to have a more stimulating environment with kids her age for the 2 days a week she's there. She's with us/grandparents for the other days, so plenty of quiet time
• The space and facilities offered by the nursery were superior to what childminders offered in my area

£105 per day here. It's eye watering.

And why TF is the 30 hours funding only for term time?!

If min wage was 10 per hour and 8 hour day for one person would be 80 just salary

The cost to the business is more - tax, insurance , heating the building , renting the building

And whilst you will get 2 or more children per worker , you also need spare workers for holidays and sick days

Can easily see how it costs so much

I suspect the real winners are the landlords

So £6 an hour?

Depends on how many kids they are looking after, I suppose. But I used the example of a childminder as the absolute cheapest possible option.

I was paying £6 an hour in west London 13 years ago for a childminder. And I also had to pay sick pay and holiday pay, so worked out more.

commuter belt of London obviously a lot cheaper than London.

But no nursery can provide care for £6 an hour unless heavily subsidised in Central London.

You pay your childminder £6 an hour?? That’s obscene. Does minimum wage not apply when someone is looking after your children?

I don’t know if all childminders have to be listed on the council’s website, but there are 4 nurseries plus 3 term time preschools within walking distance of my house and no childminders. I don’t know anyone who used a childminder either. You’d have to earn a lot to afford a big enough house to do it here.

On the OP’s question, companies like Bright Horizons seem to be profitable. Economies of scale I guess.

Childminders are self employed and look after more than one child at a time.

It's not obscene at all.. Don't be dramatic.
Childminders look after more than one child at once.

Minimum wage £10.42/hr
Paediatric first aid each staff member £150
Safeguarding training each staff £50
DBS each staff member £45
ICO £40/yr
Ofsted £40/yr
Pushchair for more than 2 £700
Public liability insurance
Buildings insurance
Car insurance
Commercial bins

Toys, crafts, crockery, outdoor equipment, cots, food, printing, technology

Gas & electric £££
Rent / mortgage £££
Business rates

@janicegarvey

Unfortunately times have changed, and childminders aren't as accessible as they used to be.

Where we live so many have retired or closed down. It's very difficult to make a living on childminder fees now sadly. You also need to be able to afford a house/ property large enough to provide a stimulating environment for multiple children, have space for them to nap, play, do arts and crafts; etc.

The ones that are still around here are full up and have massive waiting lists. So there is no hope of getting a space.

Thank goodness there are nurseries who are open almost all year round and cover my working hours. I would be totally screwed without them.

If it shows how much tax they pay, it should show the profit without you having to work it out.

But a lot are loss making.

In our area the price difference is a lot smaller.

But to your question:
Every childminder we looked at had the following problems:

Nap and meals routine set by them due to school runs. Understandable but the nursery offered an approach where naps and even meals were baby-led

Food - spoonfeeding as it was faster and easier, we did BLW and the nursery supported it

Own children - when ill then they had to close, doesn't happen in a nursery

Holiday - most took holidays in the school holidays, understandable but for us an expense we didn't need at that point

Not enough adults to interact with

They usually have 3-5 kids with them

I work for a small nursery chain.
They charge £72 a day.
They don't pay their staff NMW.
They don't have a high turnover of staff.
They spend loads on the business.

In our case there wasn't a childminder within walking distance of our house, whereas there were two nurseries.

I'd seen childminders at toddler groups ignoring their children which put me off. I'd rather use a nursery where there are several staff members around keeping an eye on things.

I was part-time so could do things like toddler groups, Rhymetime and the park with DD so nursery gave her a different experience.

Nursery had better opening hours than childminder (7am - 6.30pm), was open every weekday, only closing on bank holidays so no need to book leave to coincide with childminder's holidays.

Nursery provided all the meals, nappies, suncream, milk etc. Childminders locally sometimes offered lunch but most wanted you to provide a packed lunch and nappies, cream. So far more convenient at nursery.

Oh and the daily routine - if we'd used a childminder DD would have been taken on the schoolrun twice a day, with naps etc having to fit around that rather than her needs. Whereas nursery has a lot more flexibility and time for playing.

I don't understand this attitude, sorry. Surely your child is the most important / precious person in your life, and it's worth paying people well to look after and socialise them? I see a lot of people complaining about child care costs on this site, but I think good childcarers are worth their weight in gold.

£65 a day is easily £1200-1500 a month. If you're "only" earning £1950 a month it's a killer.

It's unaffordable for many, doesn't mean they don't live and want the best for their kids..

Owner of small chain of very nice nurseries local to me is absolutely raking it in. Own four kids at private school, amazing house, swish cars. There can be a lot of money in it.

Few childminders charge anything like that the average is more £5 to £6 and hour and funding rates are lower for 3 year olds.

Because they believe the stories about childminders being off sick etc whereas most I know rarely have time off they also seem to think that nursery is safer

Ive found that nurseries are cheaper than childminders. Also nurseries are open 51 weeks of the year and childminders close roughly 4/5 weeks of the year and still charge full price when closed.