What do nannies earn? And what do nanny employers earn?

[RubyrooUK]

Hello,

Forgive my ignorance. What is a nanny wage likely to be in north east London? And how much do parents using nannies earn?

We have a three year old and seven month old, currently in nursery. DH and I both have professional jobs and lots of people have expressed surprise that we don't have a nanny but we never really considered it as an affordable option.

Anyway, our nursery fees are now pretty hefty and although the 7 month old is very happy, the 3 year old prefers one-on-one time and his own home. So I'm just wondering if I should explore a nanny.

Any advice on average salaries? Or nanny employing parents willing to tell me their incomes so I can understand what proportion is normal to spend on childcare?

Many thanks in advance.

No experience but compare what you pay in nursery fees to nanny agency fees that should give you an idea.

Thanks Stella - was being lazy and hoping some nannies on Mumsnet might give me a ballpark without me ringing round lots of agencies.

Busted.

A couple of years ago I was a nanny in se London Bromley boarders and worked 7.15-6pm for £88 a day after tax, both the children were at school.

In my area (sw London) it is cheaper to have a nanny than pay 2x nursery fees. The going rate is about £10/h net (most nannies talk in net terms although you should agree a gross salary) which grosses up to v. roughly £14/h. If you google mr anchovy he has a useful calculator that can help you with figures.

I'm on £25k a year (3 days a week) and pay my nanny £250/week net (30 hours - she brings her son with her so slightly cheaper). Basically once you've grossed that up and paid travel costs and pension contributions, I am breaking even.

There are probably cheaper child are options now dd1 is at school but it is such a convenient setup (and lovely for the dds) that we will stick with it for now .

550 minimum net a week for full time , less for live in.
Not sure what that works out to gross. Sorry. Then there's employers National insurance to add in.
And it bankrupts us. But we need flexibility so no choice!

I don't think you will save any money if you get a nanny. It will be more expensive if anything and there are additional costs you need to consider as well like the food cost, kitty, additional heating, gas and electricity. I am looking for a position at the moment and I am hoping for 30k gross for a full time position. My employer will have to pay employer's NI on top of that.

£13-15 gross per hr. averages out at about £500-£550 take home a week depending on nanny hours

I'm a GP and I'm going to be spending about half my net salary on my nanny's gross salary.With 3 children,1 at school,that is the only way to fulfill all my childcare requirements and be able to do my own job.
I'm not in London,a nanny there would be taking up a bigger proportion of my salary which would be largely the same.

Oh and I would say that an average London nanny therefore costs £35-40k a year after paying gross wage, ni etc. So as an employer you probably want a household income over £100k living in London

Its not a straightforward calculation. If your son is 3, he will be entitled to 15hrs 'free' childcare at your nursery (rarely free but you should see a deduction on your fees) and you can pay some of the fees through the childcare vouchers. You need to include those deductions in your calculations.

We looked at nannies when we had twins - we are not London but worked on basis of £14 /hr gross - needed 30 hours (3 days) so £420 a week, so about £1900 per month.

2 x 3 day places, with a 10% deduction for the 2nd child, using the childcare vouchers worked out cheaper for us (about £500 cheaper). I was on about £30k for a 3 day week at that point, so as someone else said, I wasn't left with much whichever way I did it.

In my case, I thought they'd benefit from socialising / doing more age specific / varied activities at nursery so we went with that route, but must say that nannies are much more flexible.

Thank you everyone. This is really helpful. Our nursery fees are around £24K a year so it would be a bit of a bump to a nanny but worth considering, I think, if DS1 continues to find nursery hard going at the moment, with the added bonus that it would be a way of sorting pre and post school childcare when he starts school next year. At the moment, we will have two pick-up/drop-offs a couple of miles apart across busy London if DS1 is at school and DS2 is at nursery. And two jobs where we are not really supposed to work 10-4!

Hmmm....

Salary Survey 2012 (published Jan 2013)
A new survey is due to be commenced shortly and like the 2012 survey it should be open to anyone to submit information. So with luck more parents and nannies will participate and thus a better picture of salaries will be established.

I am not in London so where I am wages are lower, £8-£12 gross an hour. In London I would expect that the range is more like £10-£15 gross an hour.

Keep in mind that the salary is not your only cost as the employer. There are also costs like Employers NI, cost of operating payroll, mileage payments if the nanny uses their own car, cost of heating/lighting at home as the house may be used more than if none of you were at home, cost of activities. Example cost calculation will help you see what other costs may possibly be, though it depends on your circumstances. www.listentotaxman.com will calculate Employers NI for a given Gross salary. I think employers NI for April 2014l-March 2015 is staying the same as now (anyone know for sure?).

If you and your husband have slightly flexible jobs it could work out cheaper. You mention that you currently work 10-4 or one of you either way assuming for you to take and pick up from nursery.

Could one of you go into work early and the other later? And then finish early etc?

The average London nanny probably works 8-6 min to allow for 9-5 parents. Or 7-7 if longer. If one of you can stay home until say 9am, and another at home by 5pm then you would save roughly £30 a day ( based on £15 gross, ni, etc cost per hr), as nanny could work 9-5, instead of 8-6pm.

The later one of you can leave in the morning and the earlier one can get back the more potential to save. If that makes sense?

Sorry Artandco, I confused things with the 10-4 comment. I meant those would be our hours if we were doing drop-off and pick ups at two separate places across London (the nursery is a way away from our house, the school is nearby) as the turnaround would be so long! At the moment, it takes me an hour to get to work to both kids at nursery with no transport issues.

We are both supposed to work loosely 9:30-5:30 but realistically most people work 8-8 and then in the evenings too. My job in particular has a lot of evening work. Tomorrow I have to be there at 8:30. Meanwhile DH has a lot of international travel so sometimes I need to both pick up and drop off (normally we share).

So we would need 8-6 probably....

Thank you all. This has been so helpful.

we're not in London and pay our nanny £7.50 an hour. she's part time and we also use nursery (and DD1 is at school) Nursery is £32 for a 10 hour day so nanny is way more expensive than nursery. Eyes are popping at nannies costing £15 an hour, you'd need to earn about £40 an hour to make it worth even thinking about and if that's cheaper than nursery for 2 I'm so so glad to be oop in the grim north

Sleepless - £7.50 an hour gross, or Net? Yes salaries in cities does seem quite a lot higher, even people like me who are 22-25 miles outside of city get quite a lot less than those who are closer. I suspect it is due to cost of housing and cost of living generally. Not sure how many nannies are getting £15 gross an hour, many I suspect will be on less, though some will be getting top amounts.

£7.50 gross. Nursery staff round here are all on the minimum wage (£6.31 if 21 or older) unless they are room leaders where the local average is £7-7.20 an hour. New nanny starts monday, I may well put her up to £8 after her 1 month review but know several other nannies with vastly more experience than ours who have asked for £8 as they feel this is well above the going rate for other childcare jobs locally

I work in the NHS and certainly HCAs and admin staff locally rarely get more than £8 (and are usually equivalently qualified/responsible)

We are in NW. Nursery is £63 a day per child, maybe slightly less if you do 5 days, as I've said, nannies expect £9 or £10 net (definitely a shortage of good, reliable nannies here so they can demand good rates - i'm paying £10 for an after school nanny) so not that much difference on top line figures. Its the extras that Nannynick refers to , plus the ability to get tax breaks which makes a difference. But thats the cost of the 1:1 (or 1:2) care you'd get and the flexibility of a nanny.

We are in NW. Nursery is £63 a day per child, maybe slightly less if you do 5 days, as I've said, nannies expect £9 or £10 net (definitely a shortage of good, reliable nannies here so they can demand good rates - i'm paying £10 for an after school nanny) so not that much difference on top line figures. Its the extras that Nannynick refers to , plus the ability to get tax breaks which makes a difference. But thats the cost of the 1:1 (or 1:2) care you'd get and the flexibility of a nanny.

Bear in mind that you can pay nannies with childcare vouchers too if they're ofsted registered - which I think is relatively straightforward.

We are in SW London and pay £10 ph gross for 8am-7pm. Cheaper than nursery for our 2 yo twins (£75 per day per child here) and many more benefits IMO. It's about half my net pay, but DH is the main breadwinner now as I only work 3 days.

were up t'north, a lady at our pre school with three children pays her live in au pair £45 a bloody week.

As a rough guide you are looking at paying £5/7k gross a day annually for a nanny depending on age area and experience

Ie 3 day nanny anything from £15/21k gross and 5day £25/35k+ for an experience nanny £12gross a hour

Plus obv employers ni

Then think about food heating kitty activities and mileage /car for nanny

theignored an au pair isn't a nanny though. They are cheaper for a few reasons but one is that they don't have the training or experience a nanny will have. And for that amount I suspect the AP is doing very few hours or the family is paying English class costs.

Our nanny used to take around 75% of my net salary once everything was taken into account, which was steep but the alternative was not working. At London rates it wouldn't have been viable, but we might have found a CM willing to so early starts.