Why are nursery workers so poorly paid, seeing as fees are so extortionate ?

[gluo]

Where does it all go, seriously ?

I have thought the same thing often.

Rent, rates, upkeep, insurance, repairs, food, utilities, power. And yes profit margins too.

Give it five seconds thought.

Rent? Insurance ? Do the have to pay for ofsted type checks and similar ? Heating ,electric , water , maybe commercial rubbish collection fees.

When you actually work out per hour what it costs, and consider the wages, food, nappies,
heating, cleaning, maintenance, insurance etc there’s probably not a lot left!

• national insurance, sick pay, maternity pay, pension contributions, resources, training, cleaning products, cleaner,

I'm not sure, but I assume the following:
rent on building
energy
training
food
business rates
holiday and sickness cover

under 3s are generally used to subsidise the 'free' childcare for 3 year olds as the government does not pay enough to cover the true cost.

We pay £1,200 a month for full time nursery. My son needs a ratio of 1:3 so I assume for that member of staff they get around £3,600 in fees. That has to cover wages, employers NI and pension, heating, toys and supplies, food, nappies, rent in some places. Then you really need 1.5 members of staff per 3 because sick leave, holidays, training. I can see how it doesn’t stretch far.

There are just a large amount of costs. Insurance is expensive. Ratios are high. My mum ran a crèche for a while. She couldn't make money out of it.

Oh and my nursery is not for profit too (public sector workplace nursery) so there is no owner to pay.

Nurseries (and care homes) are increasingly being run by obscure funding arrangements that maximise profit and are really not interested in quality of care.

When my children were at nursery, according to companies house the 3 directors were paid 80k each in dividends.

Are the fees extortionate? There is a thread where the OP is paying £1100 a month for 4 days of childcare, 3 nursery works per child.

Someone pointed out that that's £3,300 for each nursery worker and out of that what needs to be paid is:

• nursery workers wage
• manager wage
• rent
• bills
• toys/food

Even though the wages aren’t enough for the individuals, they are a huge chunk of the businesses costs.

Simple answer: the fees aren't extortionate.

Heating

A family member said to me 'Nursery managers are raking it in.'
I quickly put her straight. Like the others have said, the money doesn't go far.

Rent, rates, high staff ratio on split shifts, qualified early years teacimg staff for pre-school, office manager, cooks, accountancy services, payroll advice, hr advisors, insurance is eye-watering, maintenance contractor, regular health and safety consultants.
Theres a Nursery next door to us - the owner told us his monthly pest control bill (proactive, not reactive) and I was 😳

They do make ok profits, but the running costs are astronomical.

Not really that hard to work out if you think about it for more than 30 seconds.

Energy bills, up by £900 a month, according to the email I got today about increasing fees at DD’s private nursery. Meals are going up a lot if you have “free hours”, lunch is now £3, and they say the shortfall with the hours is getting worse.

The fees barely cover the costs. It costs around £900 a month in salary costs alone just for the main worker, then there's rent, heating, management costs, food, cook, cleaning, toys, art supplies. Admin costs (accounting fees etc). Oh and that £900 is based on minimum wage for 10 hours a day

I'm not sure what's going to happen with nurseries because they're losing a lot of staff at the moment due to the terrible pay

I’m sure I read that to get the true cost of employing someone you multiply their wages by 1.4 so 8-6 min wage is £133 a day. Rent, rates, insurance, heating, supplies are all variable costs but really 60-70 quid a day is not unreasonable.

Those caring for society's most vulnerable are always shittily paid. The unfairness of it riles me.

Not just the terrible pay that's driving workers out but the unbelievable stress and back breaking work as well. I can completely see why the sector is in crisis.

Those that own nursery chains certainly take a good slice of profit! Pay staff shite wages, ssp, govt pension and often fund buildings through creative funding approaches. Food purchased is usually bulk garbage. Add in after school clubs / breakfast where you can pack in the kids with low staff number to supervise and you’re on your way! It only really becomes very profitable once you have a few nurseries established. Not v profitable if it’s just one single operation unless you have a real USP and can charge a bit more for a particular service