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?!

I use to work as a nannie many moons ago I had no qualifications) I thought these days you had to have qualifications

we were very good employers and we consider her our friend and likewise. Your post was bloody rude

She is your friend and yet you snipe about her being overpaid because her core hours are only 50 per week?

And you are lecturing other posters on manners?

Feh.

my husband and I managed to look after them, homeschool them and do our jobs at the same time...

Either you're lying, or you had help, or you need to bottle it and sell it because i haven't heard anyone claiming to have done this while holding down your incredibly difficult stressful job that keeps you up all night, plus whatever it is that your husband does to earn enough that you're able to spend £50k pa on your nanny.

I'm not trying to have a dig but it's not clear what you want here other than to moan about someone earning what you've told us is the market rate for their job.

Eh? You can still like someone and be friends with them and think they’re overpaid? I’ve got plenty of friends I think are overpaid! It’s nothing personal against her. Jesus.

I am a nanny (not in London) and pay where I live is roughly £9-15 per hour (£15 ph being in a nanny share, where 2 families share the nanny and split the cost)
I don't think it is highly paid. I'll probably earn about 28k over the next year (gross) but that is putting in a 50+ hour week every week. You say in your posts that your job is more challenging and you don't get to switch off. Just to let you know, nannies don't get to switch off either. Looking after other people's children is both rewarding but also mentally draining, i am always watching them, always thinking up/planning activities. The odd time they nap/ watch a bit of tv/ independently play, i am preparing snacks/ cooking/ putting a wash on/ cleaning up from arts and crafts. I pride myself in my job, I strive to put my all in to it. I went to uni to become a teacher but was put off by the levels/ targets/ exams children had to perform for so chose to become a nanny where I can tailor my teaching skills towards the children and their abilities and interests. I can assure you I rarely get time to 'rest'

You also say about the nanny 'being able to go home and rest in the evenings and weekends' and? Your point is? The nanny you employed happened to have no children, so that's great that she can relax. Other nannies also put in a full day of nannying and go home to their own children. Nannying is a proper job and what a nanny does in his/ her free time is up to them. It was yoir choice to have children so saying your job is harder because you go to work and then go home to your own children is not really comparable.

@Fr0thandBubble - tbh, if you think being a Nanny is so easy and enjoyable, whereas your work is comparatively stressful, difficult and boring, and no more important to society than being a Nanny is, then I’m wondering why you aren’t a Nanny yourself! Doesn’t it pay enough for you?

I'm the (ex) Nanny from the thread that you're referring to on the £120k.

Part of me thinks I was massively overpaid - but then I worked 24/6 for this money and did everything. It was horrifically stressful and I was completely at the mercy of the whims of the family.
I don't have qualifications, but I didn't exactly step into that job either - I started out on much lower pay.

The high paid jobs come with a lot more shit than your standard Mon-Fri Nanny job.

HOWEVER

My point is that nannies get paid really well without needing any qualifications or having to work that hard.

You lost me at this sentence. A Nanny who is not working hard, is not doing their job properly. Childcare is HARD, even more so when it is not your own child.

Well, the nanny earning 120k is earning more than I am as a doctor. Am I about to quit and become a nanny? No.

Are you about to quit your job for the life of ease and luxury of your nanny? No.

Weird, isn’t it, how they’re so overpaid and their job is so easy.....but we don’t want to do it.

For a long long time I had a cleaner who earned more per hour than me. Why shouldn’t she? She was doing a difficult job, doing it well, and that’s what the market said she could get for her skill. This silly hierarchy of who should earn more based on perceived status is old and tired.

To get the £120k type salary you basically have to have no life of your own and to never have had any life of your own because you’ll have spent years working for high net worth families, getting excellent references, following them around the world, working more or less continuously, any time off will be adhoc to suit them outside of a few weeks a year, but you don’t really need time off because what the hell are you going to do stranded ‘on vacation’ in a luxury mansion in a remote part of Crete anyway? You might as well work.

And it’s totally incompatible with ever having children of your own.

@Yetiyoga Ugh, that comment was specifically to address a PP who said two parents (with full-time jobs) looking after their children during lockdown was not even comparable to a nanny having to look after children on their own. My point was that that was bollocks, which it is.

As for you, you earn little over half what my nanny was getting, so clearly my comment was not aimed at you.

I’m signing off now as this thread has got weirdly nasty.

@Dandarabilla

No nanny earns such an amount of money (especially unqualified) as you claim in your post. Maybe after tax, but no nanny earns £50K a year, that’s a blatant lie! £50K a year would translate to approx. £950/week. Show me a nanny who earns that much. Your post is a joke!

Here are some examples of Nanny jobs going for that right now. Also note that the salaries are quoted as NET = so add income tax on top.

Also - being a Nanny has a time limit on it. Usually around late thirties-early forties.

It also is not family friendly at all - most of us do it in our twenties, get a lum of money and then move on.

I’m loving all the people saying that £18-25 per hour isn’t much.
I do a skilled scientific job which requires accuracy and qualifications and I am just on NMW with 8 years experience.

Think I’m gonna be a nanny. Apparently don’t need any qualifications for that!

@ChrisPrattsFace to be fair, the op chose to pay that much and enployed a nanny without qualifications. Like I've said (outside London) going rate is anywhere between £9-15ish an hour.
Nannies earning £18-25 ph have normally gone to Norland College and tend to work for HNW families (celebs, Royal family etc...) where the job is extremely stressful and you basically have no social life.

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.

Nannies aren’t there to clean, you’d need a housekeeper or cleaner for that.
You hired the nanny for childcare, ironing isn’t childcare.

Here are some examples of Nanny jobs going for that right now

The job mapping onto that salary is for a governess, not a nanny.

OP I’m assuming your nanny is actually just a bit shit at her job so you don’t really see her value. You’ve mentioned her being unprofessional a few times, and implied she’s a bit lazy by not doing anything when your youngest is at nursery. As you said, you’re too soft and perhaps your nanny takes the piss.

I pay our nanny more than you and don’t begrudge her a penny of it. She makes my life so much easier, allowing me to do my (highly paid, long hours, demanding, stressful and unpredictable) job without having to worry about my children, whether they are ok and whether I can get back from work in time. I pay her well because I need someone who won’t moan when I give zero notice that I’m going to be two hours late, or ask her to do an overnight the next day because I need to travel and OH is already away.

I don’t just pay her for what she does during the 12 hours a day that she’s contracted to work for us, I pay for the peace of mind of knowing I can fully focus on my job when I need to, and knowing that I have someone who adores my DC and is absolutely devoted to their well being.

The other aspect I hadn’t really considered before employing a nanny is that she makes my weekends easier too. I start the weekend with a tidy house and I don’t spend half of it doing DC laundry.

I suggest you look for a better nanny if you are paying that much!

[quote Fr0thandBubble]@upsidedownwavylegs Not really, I work ridiculous hours in a professional job which requires a degree and three years training on top of that. It’s very stressful and not much fun! Not many people could do (or would want to do!) my job, which is why I get paid well for it.

My point is that nannies get paid really well without needing any qualifications or having to work that hard.[/quote]
But they're not really nannies without a qualification.

Seems to me you also took advantage of the furlough scheme which was designed to help employers keep their staff on over difficult times. Seeing as you say you had to look after your children and work then I’m guessing you were paid your normal wage. Why on Earth not just pay your nanny as normal and let her keep working so you wouldn’t have to juggle childcare and work, no doubt doing a crappier job of the childcare than she would have done? I’m betting you didn’t top up her 80% either Makes you wonder why some people have kids.

@Fr0thandBubble you're coming across as weirdly nasty, and spiteful. You're harping on about you and your nanny being 'friends' but you clearly don't value her worth as an employee or extended member of your family.

Oh and clearly furloughed her in a global pandemic (did you top up her salary or just pay the basic 80%?) And then have made her redundant since. Im not sure she would consider you a 'friend'

You can get a nanny for less than that, even in London

I do wish people wouldn’t compare nanny salaries with teachers without pro rataing the teachers’ salaries up to a 48 week equivalent.

And I wish even more that people wouldn’t compare hourly salaries for full time employed worker staff like nannies, with hourly rates for self employed workers like cleaners who sell their time on an hourly basis in dribs and drabs, often having to travel between jobs at their own expense and usually get no holiday pay, no sick pay, no NI contributions, no pension contributions, and no redundancy pay.