How much do you need to earn to pay for a nanny in London?

[Zipitydooda]

I wondered whether anyone can give me an idea of this really.

I've always used a combination of CM, breakfast club, grandparents for childcare but it was getting increasingly complicated and stressful especially dropping everyone off in different places in the morning, getting ready and getting to work in good time.

I'm not working at the moment having recently had my 3rd DC but I'm quite keen to work part time although fortunately not under financial pressure to do so. However, I work in a stressful, demanding job and think that the only way to do childcare with minimal stress added to me would be to hire a nanny. I don't know whether I could actually afford one. I want to pay tax etc all properly and think that the going rate for a nanny in this area is about £10/hr + tax.

Does anyone pay similar and what do you end up paying including taxes, NI over a year?

It will depend on your mortgage / rent payment etc. I suspect you'd need a gross joint income of getting close to 100k to make this realistic - after you factor in all the tax / car insurance / kitty the nanny needs you could probably pay 35k-40k or so (out of your net salary of course).

Disclaimer - I don't actually have a nanny (so will watch this thread for anyone more knowledgeable) but have been trying to work out if we could afford it too!

70k perhaps. A nanny is paid out of your taxed income, and nannies in London could well be on 30k gross salary.

How much does a nanny cost I think you are asking - hard to say but calculators like www.mranchovy.com/calc will give you employers NI figure.
I have done some examples of nanny costs in the past, search my posts. I will try to post a link to one later.

And it is worth advertising locall as there are loads of people out of work at present who do not need high salaries. I never found qualifications necessarily made a nanny better than experience with children and being a sensible loving person.

We couldn't afford a nanny and we jointly earn nearly £100K. But we are stuck in a tricky situation of having two houses, one of which we have found it impossible to sell.

I still can't see how we could afford a nanny and a decent family-sized home (3 beds would be nice) where we live in the South East.

Going rate in SW London is £9-12 per hr plus tax and any activities. Eye watering isn't it? But I've looked at other options and for the moment this suits me best and hoping I can swap to au pair/after school clubs in years to come and I accept I'm taking home limited money.

Have you looked at childcare.co.uk? That will give you a good idea of what childcarers expect in your area.

And to answer your post, I think your joint income has to be in the minimum region of £80-100k depending in your other outgoings

Where are you exactly? £10/hour is a lot - we pay around £8-9 net bt that's for a less experienced but very good nanny. In SE London not central. And we pay taxes etc. I think the more kids you have the more it makes sense to get one.

Here is a message thread from Feb 2012 which contains some costing details, plus comments from people about how the costings will vary - for example, what is the daily activities budget? £5 a day, too much, or too little?

The childminders near me in west London charge £6-10 an hour per child. I presume that wouldn't include tax but I hadn't realised that a nanny might be cheaper!

Thank you so much for all that information. It looks like on a salary of around 30K (excluding DH's salary) it's silly to hire a nanny, I might end up shelling out more than I'm earning. I should wait a while till youngest is not a baby.

However for my own sanity and morale I might need to think of some creative solutions.

Grr makes me quite angry that I cant afford to work without juggling childcare solutions. I'm a teacher and could make a good contribution to society beyond my immediate family.

Childminders are charging £10 an hour?!

I sympathise zipity. Dh and I are in a similar position. However, we might still give a nanny a try ... on the grounds that although this cost is high its only temporary (compared with the longer term benefits of keeping careers going / pension etc).

You will not have much change from £70k for full time unless you can find someone starting out or cheaper for some other reason.

My neighbour does. I can't work out if the parents are very rich or like one I know pays through tax credits. They most have only children though! I'm suck cos even though my kids are in school I can't get place in school childcare so it would cost between £36- £60 a day for my 2 to go to the 2 nearest childminders. So if I factor in traveling i might not break even!

I'm central London and I think my MB pays about £48000/£49000 a year including all tax and that. Not including her employers NI plus kitty for food and activities but to be fair she would spend the kitty with or without a nanny cause her child still needs food and to socialise whoever looks after him.

Might be worth shelling out / muddling through in the long-run, don't just look at short-term finances. there're threads elsewhere on MN sixth former teachers bemoaning how difficult it is to get back into teaching after a career break (employers wanting cheap NQTs), although that may be less difficult in London.

You may find that because of the economic situation wages aren't as high as you think, it doesn't cost much to put out an ad on nannyjob/gumtree/local forums and see who responds. Or nannyshare for the younger DC plus after school care for the other(s)?

Should say former teachers, not sixth former teachers, that'd be funny, teaching then DC and career break all by sixth form!