Where do you find a nanny?

[RockCrushesLizard]

I've tried all the routes I have used previously with my older children, like childcare.co.uk and local forums, but no one is biting.

I'm not underpaying, or trying to get out of paying tax et cetera it's all kosher, so I was wondering if any of you had good ideas.

I'm in Southeast London if it makes any difference

I agree. Net salaries are my biggest bugbear with employing a nanny but very rarely will a nanny discuss gross salary. I find that we have to agree net and then I gross up for the contract. But really what happens is that nannies working more hours or Ona higher salary are asking employers to pay more as the employer ultimately bears the cost of the higher tax rate. I wish I could get away with that when negotiating salary in my job!

[quote SW1amp]@karmakameleon

Are you in London?

If Nextdoor and Childcare doesn't throw up anything, try asking other nannies if they know anyone looking for a role.

Being very broad brush, we found that Brazillian nannies were more open to doing housekeeping than Europeans, but many would only do pure nanny work.
But there is a very active Brazillian community who are happy to share job roles, so it would be a good starting point[/quote]
Yep in London. Wondering how I can tap into the Brazilian nanny community now!

We found our after school nanny via childcare.co.uk - I think we were very lucky tbh and we did have to be flexible on a few things.

You could look at Koru Kids as they are specifically aimed at part time/after school roles?

Having said that, we were looking at Koru in the summer and found that good candidates got snapped up instantly so the ones left were those who had very little experience or very limited hours availability. There is clearly a real shortage.

If you can make your role 30 hours a week on average across the year (maybe a little less in term but more in holidays) you may find more candidates. Or if you can make it 2 full days, then they can look for another 2/3 full days to make up the hours.

It’s not the best time of year to be looking as I imagine more nannies will become available between school years and will have been recruited in the summer. Possibly might have better luck looking over Christmas for a Jan start?

Good luck

@karmakameleon

Which area are you?
If it is SW, PM me and I'll give you some starting points..!

And then there is the good old fashioned way of approaching people in playgrounds, at pick up, at sports clubs, and asking if they know of anyone

Actually haven’t tried koru kids yet. Thanks, that’s another one to try.

Happy to make the hours up to 30 hours a week but definitely need someone every day in term time. Kids have too many activities so need two people about.

[quote SW1amp]@karmakameleon

Which area are you?
If it is SW, PM me and I'll give you some starting points..!

And then there is the good old fashioned way of approaching people in playgrounds, at pick up, at sports clubs, and asking if they know of anyone[/quote]
Thanks will PM you. I’ve had a good old moan to anyone who’ll listen on this so have picked up a few leads but nothing that might lead to a permanent solution.

Worth also asking on the class WhatsApp. So many families moving out of London at the moment you may get lucky with the nanny if a friend of a friend or something.

Thank you all.

We are advertising as a nanny-housekeeper role, I know it won't appeal to everyone, so wanted to be clear at the outset.

Previously we've always just used local FB groups or forums, or word of mouth, but there just seem to be fewer interested candidates.

It hadn't occurred to me to offer more hours in the holidays - I assumed that most people want year round, that's a good thought.

That's funny as I'm a nanny currently looking and don't really see much that matches my criteria. And by 'much' I mean basic full time hours, so that I can pay my bills. A lot of people only want a couple days or my absolute favourite is work 4 hours a day before/after school but magically be available 10+ hours a day in the holidays.

What kind of hours are you offering OP?

This is most probably our problem. I’m happy to make up the hours with housekeeping work but don’t want to pay someone to do nothing. We let our old nanny go for many reasons but not wanting to move onto a more housekeeping role when the children were in school full time was one of them. I basically want to pay someone to be a SAHM to school age children but don’t know where I’d find such a person!

Well at least you figured it out. I never understand nanny/housekeeper roles, I am university educated and have years of experience working in a school and with children, those skills are not interchangeable with cleaning your house

@RockCrushesLizard

That's all really useful, thank you.

We're looking for a nanny housekeeper role, doing morning drop off, then looking after our one year old most of the time, housekeeping on 1-2 mornings when I'm not working. We want around between 20-30 hours per week, but are flexible as to whether that's 3 longer days, every morning or anything in between, as I can make my own hours.

I'd be really grateful to hear from nannies about what might make the role appealing.

Oh sorry I asked what hours you are looking for and missed this.

For me it's simply not enough hours, I do 40 over 4 days but the majority of nannies I know look for 50+ over 5 days.

I'm also not remotely interested in housekeeping. Child nurturing and development is my passion.

I completely get that not all nannies want to take housekeeping roles but the flip side is that not all employers are willing to pay a nanny when children are in school for 30+ hours a week. Our last full time nanny was paid £50k a year. It’s a lot of money and most families can’t afford it. It was fine for her to chill when the little one was in nursery for three hours a day. More annoying when it became six hours a day without kids and she insisted upon doing nursery duties after picking them up from school.

SE London here too and we found our nanny on a local facebook mums group. Lots of nannies round here looking for work, but most want full time or 4 long days.

Time to go to a nanny recruitment agency I would have said. Yes they cost money but you only pay them if you hire through them.

@karmakameleon

I completely get that not all nannies want to take housekeeping roles but the flip side is that not all employers are willing to pay a nanny when children are in school for 30+ hours a week. Our last full time nanny was paid £50k a year. It’s a lot of money and most families can’t afford it. It was fine for her to chill when the little one was in nursery for three hours a day. More annoying when it became six hours a day without kids and she insisted upon doing nursery duties after picking them up from school.

I completely get it, but this is why you aren't filling the role is all I'm saying.

I'm good at my job and it comes with the price tag. I don't expect most families to be able to afford a nanny, I consider the profession a luxury. Nannies will continue going to families that are willing to pay for their time.

I'm currently in talks for a role where the child will be in school for half the day. The family is offering full-time hours because they appreciate it has to be worth my while. I don't mind filling it with their laundry and running errands like groceries, dry cleaning etc but I'm not cleaning your house.

We used gumtree- it was almost like internet dating in that we had to kiss a lot frogs (well have a lot of coffees and then second stage bringing them for chemistry test for DC). We have had 2 excellent nannies for 2yrs (she moved of London) and 3 yrs only after school. Both had other careers in creative industries and were self employed so after school worked v well. Both excellent, caring and wonderful with DC.

But that’s why there’s a mismatch.

There’s very few families that can afford 50k a year at all let alone once all their children are in school. With the move to working from home few people need the 10-12 hour days that they previously wanted to cover commute times. Before Covid we probably would have coughed up because we needed to but now one of us is always at home and can do the morning school run.

On the other hand a lot of nannies seem to have left the profession over the last couple of years. But the ones that are left are struggling to find jobs because of the lack of families with 50k to spare and the need to spend it.

At the end of the summer term a lot of the nannies that I knew from the school run were having a moan from the other side. Even the ones who found jobs looking after preschoolers weren’t getting the long days and subsequent high pay they used to. It’s difficult from both sides and it’ll be interesting to see where the market settles.

@karmakameleon

But that’s why there’s a mismatch.

There’s very few families that can afford 50k a year at all let alone once all their children are in school. With the move to working from home few people need the 10-12 hour days that they previously wanted to cover commute times. Before Covid we probably would have coughed up because we needed to but now one of us is always at home and can do the morning school run.

On the other hand a lot of nannies seem to have left the profession over the last couple of years. But the ones that are left are struggling to find jobs because of the lack of families with 50k to spare and the need to spend it.

At the end of the summer term a lot of the nannies that I knew from the school run were having a moan from the other side. Even the ones who found jobs looking after preschoolers weren’t getting the long days and subsequent high pay they used to. It’s difficult from both sides and it’ll be interesting to see where the market settles.

Children will always grow older and go to school and couples will always have babies. There is a market still. My current family is WFH but still do 8-6, guess it depends on the types of jobs.

Nannies can't be that hard pressed for work if they're not taking those jobs with less hours, after all less hours is better than no hours.

I think that people who only need before/after school have always struggled finding someone, it isn't new to WFH. It's not easy to find another job to complement it to make up the hours, so would only ever be appealing to a small group of people.

I'm not expecting a family to keep me on once they only need less hours (hence my job hunt now) but they can't expect me to stay either when that's all they can offer. On to the next.

Nannies can't be that hard pressed for work if they're not taking those jobs with less hours, after all less hours is better than no hours.

I think both of the nannies I knew from the school run ended up taking fewer hours than they were hoping for. Clearly for them it wasn’t a long term solution but to tide them over till something better came along. A few years ago I don’t think they would have struggled to find something suitable.

@karmakameleon

Nannies can't be that hard pressed for work if they're not taking those jobs with less hours, after all less hours is better than no hours.

I think both of the nannies I knew from the school run ended up taking fewer hours than they were hoping for. Clearly for them it wasn’t a long term solution but to tide them over till something better came along. A few years ago I don’t think they would have struggled to find something suitable.

I think as a parent you have to find a balance of hours where it may be less that you needed with FT but enough to attract someone. Or pay a higher rate for the hours.

The ideal is finding someone who maybe works as a TA in the day (I did this before moving into FT nannying) but the issue with this tends to be an overlap of the time you need them to collect the children and the time they finish work as many schools want you to stay after. It's also great for school holidays.

My jobs were possible because the kids went to an after school club first for a couple hours and I collected them from there.

Have you tried agencies? Abbeville nannies, Tinies, Greycoat? Koru kids is another one.

Bubble is also good and so is Care.com

Try Facebook groups like Find a Fab Nanny and Southeast nannies.

The Lady?