to be stunned at the rates some nannies expect to be paid?

[headfairy]

Ok, I'm putting this here because if I put it in childcare I'll have hundreds of nannies hating me for evermore... However, recently I've had two nannies tell me they want in excess of £15ph net. Gross that up and that's what I earn, a graduate with 20 years experience working in a very high pressured environment with deadlines that have to be met every hour. Both of them have 10 years of nannying experience, but still....

I've had several more who want £12ph net, with less than 5 years nannying experience, and a few more who want £10ph net and yet they have almost no experience, and who've sent me cvs filled with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.

I'm going to get flamed I know... I've got the hard hat ready.

ALSO if you look at some adverts you may find that it is AGENCIES that display a NET hourly wage, because if they place someone in a family they get a multiple of the nannies NET weekly wage so maybe you should also be thinking of the the ethics of some nanny agencies.

Why not try finding somebody fresh out of prison with tattoos on their face who smells of alcohol and wears a necklace of children's skulls?
Good=expensive.
Crap=cheap.

I'm just off to start another thread. I want a nice new Ferrari but I'm not willing to pay more than £12,000 for one. I think Ferrari should make a loss on them so I can get what I want...

I trained 24 years ago as an NNEB, it was an intensive course, and set me up in a profesion I love. I have my own children now, and work as a Childminder, so that I can be with my own childen too. For all these years I have heard that there is a lack of 'affordable childcare', also that there are 'no childcare places', alongside, 'we need more people willing to work in childcare'. People want good childcare, but are prepared to pay their cleaners more than the person who is looking after their children. You either want someone who can do the job well, or you want someone who can plonk your child in front of the television whilst they smoke a fag, and neck a tin of redbull texting their mates. I am sick of those who say this is an easy job. Most of the mothers who have or indeed do still employ me say that they find going to work easier than staying at home and looking after their children.
It just fits into yet another steriotype of the Nanny or childcarer being too bloody stupid to do anything else, if this is the case, frankly stay at home and do the job yourself!
How much would you want to be paid for doing the job of a mother, and a 'perfect' one at that, because you will be judged at the end of everyday by the biological parents!
Oh, and mostly the child also ends up wanting to be with the Nanny more than the mother, so choose well, and pay her a decent wage, or you'll screw up your child as well.

Tiggy you probably haven't read OP's other thread (about nanny with own children bathing them in her house). She sounds pretty flexible and down to earth to me.
As i said earlier there is market for everything, different nannies and different families and different situations. There are situations where £15nph is justified and others where is not.

I don't understand why people get so worked up on threads like this one and about what others earn.

Good god nannies earn alot! I am suprised that alot of the time this doesn't include making meals, or cleaning (basic cleaning, not full on house). I am getting into childcare (start 19th in a creche ! purely for the fact I love working with children, I had no idea it could pay so well TBH, I'd expect maybe £10ph before tax if it was alot of responsibility. I think £20ph is alot! £200 a day?! I would worry about someone who was in it to make it a moneyspinner. I am so shocked at £20ph...

£200gross a day is obv a huge wage for a nanny, but not to other professions, ie a lawyer charges that plus more for an hour

garages cost £70ph hour

my friend earns £40k a year for typing on a keyboard (secretary)

let alone footballers who earn £125k a week for kicking a pigs bladder filled with blood

all the op wants is a nice nanny who will care for her children and not use all of her salary

she isnt saying nannies deserve nmw of £6 gross as many people earn - just that some nannies want the earth and dont understand why they dont get it :)

Well said, Tiggy. I am stunned by how tight-fisted and begrudging people are about childcare, and IME the better off people are, the less they want to pay.

There's a huge spectrum in this industry: if all you want is for your dcs to be kept alive while you're otherwise engaged, you can get someone very young and/or who doesn't speak much English and/or who doesn't have a work visa, give them accommodation and food in your home and pay them pocket money in cash. I know a very rich couple who employ their "nannies" on this basis and leave them in sole charge of toddlers for over 50 hours a week. The nannies rarely last more than 6 months but they never struggle to find replacements. I am for those children.

At the other end of the scale, the best and most expensive nannies are skilled professionals with the experience and patience to bring up children "better" than most parents can - i.e. never losing temper, consistently instilling good behaviour and good manners, creative/educational play and interaction rather than leaving dcs in front of TV, no personal phone calls or tasks while looking after dcs, etc. They may also take care of all child-related cooking, housework and laundry, leaving parents with only the fun parts of parenting. If you aren't working outside the home for more than 50 hours a week, you may not need this type of childcare, but that's what top nannies do and they are paid accordingly.

I think people just undervalue this type of work (maybe because mums aren't paid at all!). Think of it this way: if money wasn't an issue, but you couldn't look after your own children due to illness/injury and had to pay someone else, wouldn't you choose the best possible care? Yet even very wealthy people seem determined to save money in this area. Of course you want to get what you pay for, but I think the market takes care of that.

Blimey.... been off for a couple of days interviewing nannies

I'll try and answer a few of the latest posts ignoring the plainly stupid like Tiggys

In reverse date order :o

doinganythingbut I have got a friend from ds's pre school who's looking to nanny share from May, I have mentioned it to everyone we've seen. But the hourly rate for us hasn't changed really. I wouldn't expect it to unless the nanny was caring for all our children on the same day iyswim. Nannies can accept childcare vouchers if they are ofsted registered. Many aren't. I have nearly £1k in vouchers sitting in an account waiting to be used - I will cash them back in if the nanny we do finally choose won't register with ofsted.

granted I have posted a job ad on here too, had a couple of replies.

sammich the problem with using a nursery instead is that ds goes to pre-school on three afternoons a week, from September it'll be 5 mornings a week. Nurserys don't do school drop offs and pick ups do they? I could be wrong though. I'm keen to keep him in the preschool as he's very happy and settled there, has made friends and it's in the same building as the primary school I'm hoping he gets in to so when he moves up to reception it'll be very easy for him to settle in.

chickadee I know not every nanny expects these kinds of rates, to be honest it's just been two that have really shocked me with the £15ph rate, and about three or four others who've asked for £12-15ph.

mycarscallednev for your information I have always utterly respected the people who are looking after my children. Never for one moment have I thought of them as being too stupid to do anything else. Believe me I wouldn't be leaving my children with them. To be honest I'm pretty fucked off at people thinking so too. I'm not going to work because I'm some cold career bitch. I'm going to work to put a roof over our heads. The implication of your post is most definitely the former. Thanks for the warnings about screwing up my child, don't think for one moment that I'm not wracked with enough guilt that I haven't been able to earn enough in the past to be able to stay at home with them now. Thanks for giving me just one more thing to worry about as I struggle to fall asleep after a 14 hour day.

wellwisher I take exception at the accusation that I'm being tightfisted. It's not like I'm hearing £100k a year and begrudging paying someone minimum wage. I'm not a total bitch. But I want to understand why someone thinks that £45k a year is perfectly acceptible pay for a nanny to a perfectly normal family. Yes I'm sure the Beckhams pay their nannies more than that, and I'm sure their nannies are amazing, teaching the Beckham boys to speak 8 languages, teaching them to read before they're out of nappies etc etc, however I don't expect that level of care for my children. I'm happy to accept that you have to pay a lot for that. Of course I have not even bothered to interview people who have said they want £12-15ph because there's no way I can afford it. I was merely posting that I'm amazed such a high wage was expected by some nannies.

I also object to the assumption that if you pay a nanny £200 a day they are better than a parent. That's a pretty big assumption you're making about my parenting, again I think it's a thinly veiled insult at my parenting choices - ie I'm obviously a complete bitch for going out to work three days a week leaving someone else to look after my children.

I did say better than most parents, headfairy. I have no idea what your parenting is like. You may be a paragon of maternal virtue. I just think people don't realise what a really good nanny does, and I would expect that those top nannies are the ones who get the highest wages (as opposed to all the less impressive chancers who ask for that much). I also think you're overreacting to your nanny candidates' "bids" - don't you inflate your salary expectations when moving jobs so as to leave room for negotiation? If not, no wonder you're underpaid!

Wellwisher, I totally agree that the nannies who ask (and often get) £15ph should really be above and beyond what an average nanny is, my experience has been somewhat different. For £15ph I would expect the equivalent of my own abilities - degree educated, 20 years experience, top of game type of person. I would expect quite a bit of "teaching" to be included in their day, ok so ds is only 3 but someone who's worth that much should really be able to direct his play in an age appropriate educational manner. I would also expect that person to cook fab meals every day (one said she would follow a recipe if I left it, otherwise could I leave food for the kids, she was charging £12ph) and possibly even some for us, and to clean the areas of the house the children use. Really I do understand what an excellent nanny can contribute.

Oh and of course I realise that someone stating their salary desires is just a starting point for negotiations. I was merely expressing shock at high some of those starting points were.

I know market values set wages generally. I work in a big corporation where wages are set nationally. If we want to rise beyond that we have to leave. The prestige of where I'm working is meant to be compensation in itself - on the whole it is. It's also a vocation imo... I'm prepared to be paid less for something I passionately believe in.

Did you find any you liked?

Still haven't seen anyone we really like. Plenty of perfectly capable people, but nothing that leaps out. I think we were spoilt with our last nanny. It was immediately obvious how lovely she was.

You can't equate nannying with cleaning at all. One is a self-employed job that involves hard physical graft, and consequently there are only a limited number of hours it is possible to work each week or you would keel over.

Let's think about this. The vast majority of cleaners work between 10-25 hours a week in school hours and not a great deal during school holidays. Cleaning also involves unpaid time driving at your own cost from one appointment to another. There isn't a cleaner on this earth that works at full throttle plying his/her trade in one person's house for 50-60 hours a week as nannies do, with sick pay and holiday pay all covered. Also, £10 an hour for a physically hard, time-limited freelance job of this type equates to something like £7 an hour with no additional superannuation costs to the employer. Most cleaners are lucky to take home £10,000 to £12,000 annually and would owe about £2000-ish in tax on that, I reckon (whether it gets paid or not is a different question, of course).

Nannies, on the other hand, are almost always employees. That means that their employers have to find an addition 35% or so on top of the net wage in superannuation, and in addition to this there is the employer's national insurance contribution which in a year comes to over £1000. Nannies also receive sick pay and something in the region of 6 weeks holiday pay a year. Many of them earn roughly £20,000-£25,000 gross, which makes the salary approximately double or even triple that of a cleaner, when you take everything into account, even if they are trying to say rather that cleaners are earning more than them per hour (which is inaccurate and utterly irrelevant).

Lawyers are in a different category altogether. The £100 an hour you might shell out to see one also includes some time spent organising and researching your situation, and also the overhead costs such as an office, administrative staff, membership of the Law Society, continuing professional development, access to online law databases, maintaining the parking space you use when you visit them, and so on. Again, a lawyer is not seeing clients for 50-60 hours a week at full throttle. Neither is the fee the lawyer's personal money, it is a fee for professional services. What the lawyer will take home at the end of the day is often quite unrelated to this (some solicitors will be earning less than some nannies, particularly if they are doing a lot of legal aid work as well as seeing private clients for their firm, for example).

It would be much more sensible for nannies to think of their salaries in terms of annual amounts of money as the rest of us do, then they would see that their salaries are around the level of the national average wage. Comparing hourly rates with freelancers and attempted to claim that this is 'fair' without taking superannuation into account is just plain daft.

When you consider that a nanny doesn't do an awful lot more than a CM (mine had 40 years of experience, made my DS home cooked food every day) then the difference in income is staggering.

Hear hear BoffinMum.

PS If I calculated my salary in the same way as these nannies are doing, it would look like £11-something an hour! Much more competitive field, more qualifications required, more experience, more responsibility.

I remember once working out my hourly rate when I worked as secondary teacher on point 3 of the main scale. £1.66/hour. I had 15yo pupils earning £7/hour stacking shelves in Sainsboury's. That made me feel really special.

Maybe it was £3 actually, but it was pathetically low.

OP I disacussed this thread with my mate who used to be a nanny

I still think they are worth what they cost

I think the issue is you are clearly far too low paid, even though its a @vocation@ as you say

sorry! bit still think YABU

Porca- that's what a fair number of graduate people earn even with 20 years' experience. As Boffin pointed out, the way some people (lawyers, freelancers, partner GPs, etc) work means that their headline hourly rate is nothing like what they take home. I technically earn £20-£30/hour as freelancer, but since I physically couldn't do 50 hour weeks doing what I do, nor is what I do always paid (have to market and do paperwork etc as well), my take-home pay is barely more than my cleaner's was (she walked out on me when I told her I couldn't afford to pay her more), and I have to pay tax on mine.

Yes Porca, you are not doing the maths and this is the exact point I am making. The gross hourly rate they are talking about in £20-£23, and would put them securely in the top 5% of wage earners in this country, over a lot of junior hospital doctors, senior teachers, senior social workers, senior neonatal nurses and university lecturers. Are you really saying that all of those jobs are worth less than what these nannies are asking for??? I think not. Reality check required.

I also dislike intensely the attitude shown towards parents on this thread, and the arrogance and lack of professionalism.

Imagine if the tables were turned and we got outrageous statements like this:

'I trained 24 years ago as a teacher, it was an intensive course, and set me up in a profesion I love. I have my own children now, and still work as a teacher, so that I can be with my own childen too. For all these years I have heard that there is a lack of 'affordable good education', also that there are 'oversubscribed schools', alongside, 'we need more people willing to work in teaching'. People want good education, but are prepared to pay their cleaners more than the person who is teaching their children. You either want someone who can do the job well, or you want someone who can plonk your child in front of the television whilst they smoke a fag, and neck a tin of redbull texting their mates during wet playtime. I am sick of those who say this is an easy job. Most of the mothers who have or indeed do still employ me say that they find going to work easier than staying at home and teaching their own children. It just fits into yet another stereotype of the teacher being too bloody stupid to do anything else, if this is the case, frankly stay at home and do the job yourself! How much would you want to be paid for doing the job of a teacher, and a 'perfect' one at that, because you will be judged at the end of everyday by the biological parents! Oh, and mostly the child also ends up calling the teacher mummy sometimes at school, so choose well, and pay her a decent wage, or you'll screw up your child as well.'

one thing that parents who employ nannies never seem to realise is that the nanny/childcarer usually always looks after her own kids at home when she eventually has them, therefore nannies generally can't understand why parents choose to leave their kids 50 plus hours a week.

this might explain some of the "arrogance and lack of professionalism".

its just woman doing totally different jobs and not really getting why the other doesn't want to do what she does

there was a thread here ages ago about this, called something like "why do most childcarers stay ay home when they have kids instead of using childcare"

and most childcarer users couldn't understand why this happened.

most of the actual childcare workers said they would rather live in reduced circumstances rather than leave their kids in childcare

What people from comprehensives expect is shocking.