Is this Salary reasonable for Central London Nanny

[BigGLittleG]

Hello,

I need advice as a first-time mother hiring a nanny!

My husband and I live in central london and have hired a nanny to look after our ten month old son for 40 hrs a week at a rate of 540 (net).

I will be taking on a more demanding schedule until May and will now need our nanny to work for 48 hrs per week. She asked to be paid more for this time increase, at which point we raised her salary to 600 (net) and told her we would keep her salary this way even though I would be returning to a 40 hr week as of May.

She has come back to us very upset and has said that she expected to be paid £13.50 for any extra hours worked which would bring her salary up to £648 net per week.

Is this reasonable? From what I understand nannies are meant to work between 50-60 hrs per week and central london salaries range from 500-600 net per week. As she isn't even working these hours are we wrong to feel we are being taken advantage of?

She is English and has about 20 yrs of experience but at the rates she is charging, one would assume that she is Mary Poppins!
She is very good with our son but she is also very scatter-brained and messy so I often find myself cleaning up after her once she has left!

I also suspect that she is terrible with money as she has no savings and we had to lend her money for a deposit on her flat. She also seems to take a lot of black cabs everywhere (we avoid this as it's too costly) and she just bought a couch on credit from Habitat (most of our furniture is Ikea!).

The more I write this, the more I realise we may have to let her go. I suppose I just need confirmation that we are not being unreasonable in our salary offer to her.

Thank you for your replies.

The door slamming would be the end of the road for me, irrespective of the money issues.

I agree - that attitude would have me replacing her, regardless of money. FWIW we are in central London and our nanny is brilliant and we pay £8 per hour net. With a few perks, but nothing major (flight back home O/S annually and Christmas bonus are the main ones). And she is happy w that.

For London I do also think this is expensive (net) working for one family. And stroppy, messy nanny def. not worth it. Maybe she is not happy with the position and so would only consider doing the job for that price.

Having said this I was recently looking for a job in central-ish London and had specific ideal days, hours, ages, family, location etc. I expected to be quite limited in choice and was prepared to be out of work for while or compromise but £11 net seemed quite easily offered by many families and in W/SW there seemed plenty of £12 net jobs. There were also plenty of less well paid ones though so I can only assume different candidates (diff. experience/quals) would apply for those.

Some agencies said £10nph is most families would offer 'cos economy but in practice it really didn't seem that way.

TBH after the door-slamming I would be looking forward to the conversation on Monday when you tell her that she will be leaving after working her month's notice.

To affirm, we pay our highly qualified, highly experienced bilingual nanny 10 p h net in london. Very normal and well paid. Yes, we pay her gross but didn't want to confuse the issue.

The door slamming is outrageous. I once had a nanny who tried to change the terms of the contract. She really tried to play hardball and refused to do overnights if I didn't meet her pay increase. I stood my ground and said "no" (politely but firmly). She was in tears. She conceded and accepted life as it was. BUT... I never got over it. The relationship even today (long after her employment with us) was damaged beyond repair. She had many other good qualities, but this incident mad me so mad I have a hard time remember her good points.

Incidentally, even she did not slam a door and storm out.

And, yes, £600 nett is a VERY cushy job.

I have a highly qualified experienced nanny. she is contracted to work a 63 hour week (includes one night's babysitting) although in practice she probably works slightly less. She has sole charge of 3 children of 5.7, 3 and 16 months. She is currently being paid 575 a week net and will be increased to 600 in March. We live in central London.

Your nanny is COMPLETELY out of order and would not last 5 minutes more in my house. There are excellent nannies out there who would be DELIGHTED to do the job.

sounds like she doesn't get the difference between gross and net? you are paying £540 npw for 40 hours? Thats over £18/hour gross!

We pay £550 npw for 55 hours per week (for 2 toddlers) and that is considered top end even for central london which is not the cheapest area! Our nanny also has over 20 years experience.

Think your nanny is unrealistic about what she can earn and what a family can afford to pay! You are paying her too much already!