To think nannies are overpaid?

[Fr0thandBubble]

Inspired by another thread about how much people earn. Plenty of nannies earning £50-£60k per year apparently and one on £120k!

Our nanny has just left us (youngest about to start reception, thank goodness) and we were paying her nearly £50k for 8:30am-6:30pm Mon-Fri. She would also pick up quite a bit of extra money babysitting evenings and weekends L. She didn’t even have to do anything from 9-12 each morning while my youngest was at nursery - and then only had my youngest to look after until school pick-up time when she had my eldest too. And nannies these days are very reluctant to help out with any cleaning or ironing so she really was doing nothing much at all in those hours.

She was lovely but has no qualifications and is in her early thirties.

It seems wrong to me that nannies are getting paid more than most teachers when they don’t need any qualifications. What do you think?!

That sounds toppy, even for London. We are on the outskirts on London and have paid mid-30k for nannies, to work the same hours as yours. Less experienced candidates we interviewed were cheaper.

I earn about the same as your nanny as a teacher in central London (full time equivalent - I choose to work part time). I wouldn't swap jobs for all the tea in China!

As I teach Economics, I will suggest that you look up 'non pecuniary benefits', 'marginal revenue product of labour' (yours is probably high; she's enabling it to be) and 'efficiency wage'.

There's no qualification for being nice, warm, kind and reliable.

A lot of qualifications don’t make any difference to salary. It’s a myth that they do: look at how many folk with phd’s earn very little.

Finding your job stressful doesn’t mean you should get paid more.

What influences salary is how useful a service the employer provides to the employer... ie how much money they help their employer make.
Your nanny means you can do your well-paid job.
Your work means clients/customers buy stuff so you get paid a lot because you bring in a lot of ££ to the company you work for. Not because of your qualifications (they just get your foot in the door).

Ironically, both you and your nanny have a willingness to work long hours and sacrifice personal/family time, and that’s a big reason why you both earn excessive amounts - it limits how many others would do your jobs.

@nannynick I think it’s just London. We’re not even in one of the most expensive areas. I imagine nannies in areas like Chelsea or Kensington or Notting Hill get even more than we paid ours.

@Saz12 Yes I can see the sense in that.

@Fr0thandBubble

Inspired by another thread about how much people earn. Plenty of nannies earning £50-£60k per year apparently and one on £120k!

Our nanny has just left us (youngest about to start reception, thank goodness) and we were paying her nearly £50k for 8:30am-6:30pm Mon-Fri. She would also pick up quite a bit of extra money babysitting evenings and weekends L. She didn’t even have to do anything from 9-12 each morning while my youngest was at nursery - and then only had my youngest to look after until school pick-up time when she had my eldest too. And nannies these days are very reluctant to help out with any cleaning or ironing so she really was doing nothing much at all in those hours.

She was lovely but has no qualifications and is in her early thirties.

It seems wrong to me that nannies are getting paid more than most teachers when they don’t need any qualifications. What do you think?!

If she was unqualified and did bugger-all in the mornings, why the hell did you pay that much?

And she may have been 'reluctant' but that was down to you putting up with it!

How much nannies are paid is no one's business but the parents and the nanny - supply and demand. What I do object to is that parents are expected to shoulder all the costs that a business would shoulder, without being able to offset those costs against tax in the way that a business would. The parents have to pay employer NI contributions, pension, etc. Either nannies should be self-employed or parents should be able to treat having a nanny as a business expense and offset the cost of a nanny against tax.

I don't think nannies are over paid but I think you were possibly overpaying your nanny.

As an employer / boss, that's on you, not the nanny.

I suppose it depends on where you’re based. It’s disheartening sometimes to hear of others paid much more for doing the same job but I suppose that happens in all industries

I was a fantastic nanny because I loved working with children. I did any hours they wanted, cleaning, ferrying around, everything really. Never got much more than minimum wage. Compensated by working with amazing families who genuinely appreciated the effort involved.
One of my charges was my bridesmaid 15 years later.

I do agree with PP that’s it’s a bloody hard job and you are always aware that you have been left in charge of the most important things in your employers life. It really should cost loads.

Just because I have a nanny it doesn’t make me one of “The Rich”

It does.

You can afford to pay your nanny a salary which is above the median UK wage. Your household income must over 50k to fund that. I'm estimating a household income over 100k. That does make you rich.

@Genevieva I completely agree.

This is interesting. I always thought my kisses (typically bankers) get paid well because they generate huge amounts of cash for the corporations they work for. Whereas although I enable them to go to work to earn the big bucks, I’m not directly influencing that.

What saz said. What you're paying for is your flexibility/contingency - kid gets ill, you don't need to rush home from the office. Half term - no need to juggle plans around. We have a friend with a similar or even more extreme setup - two kids in private schools, nanny on a very good wage kept on because it makes more sense to pay her over the odds than to juggle drop-offs and after-school clubs, or to try find a reliable after school nanny.

And if she’s in her early 30s she could well have up to 15 years experience of looking after young children

I haven't read the whole thread, but did you miss her during lockdown? In the first 6 weeks when households weren't allowed to mix.

@Hercwasonaroll It was the capitalised “The Rich” that offended me - together with all the ridiculous stuff about wanting our children to socialise with the right people! I don’t appreciate being stereotyped like that - it really gets my back up and is just so the complete opposite of who I am as a person!

Is this 50k for a live in nanny or live out?

Nannies work long hours and some don't get a break during the day. There aren't many jobs where you do a 10 or 11 hour day without a lunch or even a coffee break.

@DianaT1969 Yes! But my husband and I managed to look after them, homeschool them and do our jobs at the same time...

Stupid money but it’s London, seems to be the excuse. I couldn’t/ wouldn’t pay that money full stop!

@justasking111 Live our. And as someone quite rightly pointed out above, my nanny was actually getting about £44k gross - it’s just that paying employer NICs and pension on top of that takes it closer to £50k.

rosebel try the NHS!!

Maybe the answer is what Genevieva suggested above - that employers should get to offset nanny costs from the tax they pay in the same way businesses do.

If I missed my employee on lockdown I would simply not have furloughed them. Conversely if my very stressful professional job was doable while also homeschooling and providing childcare I would simply not have a nanny.