Considering a Nanny - Help Please

[auntyspan]

Hello.
I'm currently Mum to a DD1 who is just over 12 months old. I currently work part-time but have been made a very generous offer to go back full time. Currently my DD is in nursery 2 days and with MIL 2 days. If I went back fulltime I could probably afford a Nanny - can someone tell me roughly how much I would be expected to pay, and where on earth I start looking for one? Would I be able to get part-time nanny care (4 days per week)? I'm in Cheshire.
Thanks in advance!

Live-in or live-out? How many hours each day?

Hi auntyspan, I've no idea re salaries in Cheshire but if you call an agency pretending you're looking for a Nanny they'll give you an idea of average salary in your area.

You could go through an agency (who will charge a fee) or try advertising on the Nannyjob/ Gumtree websites.

Good luck!

No idea about cheshire area as such but i imagine you could get a nanny for 4 days that would cost you about (maybe slightly (a FEW £)more) than £400 gross per week.

Givent that nannies odten do a 10+ hour day many of us LIKE a 4 day week (i work a 4 day week, and love my 3 day weekends!)

make sure you always deal in gross figures when employing a nanny!

i recommend nannyjob or gumtree as well, as most nannies search on there when looking for work and it saves you an enourmouse agency fee that is around (occasionaly more than £1000 , daylight robbery IMO!)

so long as you check references yourself (which any sensible parent would surely do) and check that they have a recent crb and 1st aid certificate that should be fine.

If your nanny is 'approved' (costs about £100 + 1st aid course if she doesnt already have one) then u can use childcare vouchers to pay part of her salary, and save yourself some NI. (your NI, NOT your nannies NI, which as her employer you will be responsible for collecting on behalf of her and passing onto inland rev)

I expect you know you will have to be her employer and provide a contract, wage slips, and a minimum of 4 weeks holiday per year!

Good luck!

why not use a childminder so dd could still stay at nursery and MIL and cm would fit around arrangements
less £££ than a nanny

Having a quick look at Cheshire jobs listed at NannyJob, lowest I found was £7.55 gross per hour, highest was £8.75 gross per hour. So lets say £8 per hour gross was about average. This is for live-out and I based it on 3/4 day per week jobs. Typically they averaged at 10 hours per day (40 per week for 4 days), though one worked out actually at 52 hours per week!

Lets say it is 10 hours per day, 4 days per week, so 40 hours total. At £8 per hour gross, that is £320 gross per week, which according to E-gismos calculator for PAYE and NI the employers NICS are £28.54 per week. Annual salary is £16640 gross, about £13069 net, Employers NI of around £1486, thus total cost for salary is £18,126 per year. You income will need to be at least £24,500 just to cover the nannies salary.

Hope that helps you calculate if you could afford a nanny.

Looking at Childminder fees in Cheshire (I selected Macclesfield), they seem to range from £3 per hour to £4 per hour.

Here is a childminders website if you wanted to see what you get for your money: Lucy Locket's Childcare

Therefore if you were to have a childminder for 40 hours per week, at say £4 per hour (to take the upper end of the range), then that is £160 per week, or put another way £8320 per year. This is less than 1/2 the cost of a nanny.

Nannies in my view are not very viable if caring for just one child, unless working hours are very much different to those catered for by other childcare providers. Nannies in my view tend to be used more by parents with several children (I work for a family with 3, soon to be 4 children). Childminders charge per child, nannies charge per family... thus you can see how once you have 3 or more children, a nanny can often be cheaper than other forms of childcare.