Au Pairs - tell me your experiences

[TriangleBingoBongo]

Thinking ahead here but wondering how people manage their childcare when their kids start school. The before and after school club is probably about a hour short of what I need each day and then, of course, there’s also school holidays. One will be in school and one at preschool.

Was wondering about peoples experiences of aupairs. We have space to offer a large, double en-suite room. Nice location but a bit remote - not central London.

In terms of help I’d need around 1-1.5 hours before school and 3-4 after school 4 days a week.

Then 4 days full care (11 hours) in the holidays (or maybe 3 to be fair with family help).

Ive worked out that absolute worst case, not taking into account my own annual leave or family holidays would be 27.5 hours care a week averaged over the year.

I’ve read online about pocket money. Is £90 per week really the going rate and what does that include? I had in mind food, board, lodgings. Au pair would need to drive a short distance - around 3mi to drop the children at school so would need a car too.

Is there anything I’ve not considered or am misled about re an au pair arrangement?

Yes, that's basically it. 30 hours are normal - including baby sitting now, so school holidays, you'll need to factor in camps or more family.

If you need someone to drive, you need someone over 22 who has been driving for a couple of years, otherwise the insurance will be astronomical.

However, and this is a big however, it's very difficult to get an au pair currently. You're limited to only those who can get a working youth visa (so Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders), or those who have a UK passport or who lived in the UK before Brexit. Consequently your potential pool of applicants is very small, limited further as you're not in London. You'll definitely need to offer more than `£90 to attract someone.

post Brexit there's such a shortage, I honestly think you might need to pay double what you suggest, maybe more if the nonpay aspects of what you're offering [in terms of location etc] aren't top notch.

your termtime hours don't look too bad... I'd say that 4 hours per day is low to normal, but the top of your range [5.5 hrs per day] is definitely at the high end. but than a 4 hour week is short.

as already mentioned, 11 hours per day in the holidays sounds very challenging. in my experience not many au pairs would be up for that, maybe not even for full-on overtime pay [e.g. £10 per hour ish].

Thanks both - it’s just what I have read in terms of pay - prepared to be told it’s not enough.

I could get family help for one day in the holidays so could be three full days. Would you usually pay for anything over 30 hours at an hourly rate then?

We also have an Airbnb space so definitely potential to earn more via cleaning that 2-3x a week - I thought that might appeal and we pay a cleaner £20-30 now so wouldn’t make any difference to us to give that work away.

Id say our location is nice - our Airbnb space is very popular and often booked up, but it’s not a party scene.

Would they need insuring on our car or would you expect the bought their own?

I’ve read about the brexit shortage - damn brexit!

Are there not tax implications in paying more? I’m not objecting to paying more just want to understand the dynamics of that. I thought that’s why it’s called “pocket money”.

You need to provide the car. If you’re very rural you’d need to let them use it socially too to avoid ‘bored au pair syndrome’

you can offer extra payment, but it would be optional, the expectation would be that they only work around 30 hours.
you need to register as an employer if you pay over £120ish/week.

@underneaththeash

that’s useful thank you. The biggest issue is not our location (we’re 7-10mins walk from the village centre and 1.7 miles from a train station) but our house hasn’t got a pavement so just a grass verge, we use it frequently with the children but would be too much for one person juggling two kids until they’re a bit older. Otherwise wouldn’t need a car. But if they have a car for the kids we’d need to get one for them so would make sense that they use it otherwise. Probably benefit us them being more flexible and able to go out with more ease too.

Ive looked on au pair sites and had couple of older women get in contact - I wonder if there might be a shift now because of Brexit.

@TriangleBingoBongo just be careful they can legally come to work here. Because most other countries have au pair programmes, potential au pairs tend to assume we do as well.

I know several people who’ve spent a long time chatting to potential au pairs, only to find that they can’t come or they want to come illegally on a tourist visa.

thank you - all really helpful.