London Nanny Agency Recommendations

[OnePoisedLilacEagle]

We recently split with a nanny from Little Ones. She wasn't a good fit - friendly and responsible, just very passive with the actual childcare.

So I'm looking for London-based agencies anyone can recommend.

DD is four and needs care from 8-4 three days a week. No cleaning, no driving, just cooking for DD (often reheating leftovers or meal prep) and providing her with stimulating activity, attending playdate, and taking her on outings I arrange (zoo, musuem, London Eye) using Uber or the Underground.

Which part of London? I found my latest role through South London Nannies and thought she was excellent, I am pretty sure she covers central and West London too.

Tinies covers SW London from their Hampshire branch. I found the real life mary poppins on there!

Doh they have actual London branches too

https://www.tinies.com/

Literally so so wonderful

Catherine from South London Nannies is good. She placed me in my last job and I am hoping she can place me again. The hours you want sound fab by the way, I’ve been trying to find a part time nanny job with decent hours for a while! Please PM me directly if you want! I’m on the temp circuit currently and trying to find a more permanent job.

Ellie at WrightAdvice is great.

Katie at Arthur's House also very good.

Eden are a big agency who do a decent job. It's not the personal service of the other two I've mentioned, but they have LOADS of candidates so a better chance of finding the right fit.

I would avoid Tinies.

As a nanny i recommended South London nannies . NappyvalleyNannies i found good too.

OP would be interested to know about how things went with Little Ones agency.

Also had bad experience with them. They take huge placement fee don’t they. Unfortunately candidate we had, although lovely in some ways, totally incompetent in so many other ways.
Left LO in car while going to get coffee we found out. Rarely took LO to park. Very unmotivated and was barely au pair level skill set for someone much older.
Little Ones agency clearly hadn’t vetted properly and were just in for the sales fee.
Ofcourse once your through the probation period they don’t replace the candidate without another huge placement fee. So I’ll be staying clear of them and would warn anyone ever to be wary of them.

Spoken to a lot of independent Nannie’s who are also with agencies, who say they are the worst agency also.

Can I ask why you mention to avoid tinies?

Also looking for a reputable agency to find a live in nanny and unsure which agencies to look at

When they were first established (or when I first used them as a nanny) years ago they seemed decent, but I had a bad experience with them a couple of years ago- constant offers of jobs that I doubt they even had in their books to reel me in and then the interviews they did send me on it would always turn out that the parents were looking for vastly different hours than what I’d been told, one family wanted a travelling nanny (I no longer do this because I have my own child) but they didn’t tell me that before the interview. Waste of everyone’s time.

Tinies I’m not a fan of because their nanny wages are low compared to other agencies. They do a very thorough check on you though, I’ll say that. A proper one that the nanny has to file through HMRC so they could check your dates of employment against your cv before they contacted the references. It was an absolute ball ache to be honest because HMRC are a horrible company to navigate around but I imagine it gives a lot of parents peace of mind and stops people from exaggerating their employment or how long they stayed with a particular family.

I was only trying to go through Tinies for temp work but the above check took so long I went through another agency instead (who I know did check at least 3 of my references as I’m still in touch with those employers) but did it quickly.

Tinies are a massive, country wide agency. They take on any job and any childcarer. This means that the quality of both the jobs and the carers (I won't call them nannies because a lot of them aren't) is very mixed. They've lost the personal touch that you want from a nanny agency. They don't know the families and they don't know the nannies, it's all just boxes to be ticked, comission to be made.

I can only speak from a nanny's perspective but communication is terrible, they'll send you job specs completely different to what you've asked for, will send you for interviews that you're not suitable for etc. This means that most good nannies with their pick of jobs, won't use Tinies.

Thanks, this is good to know.

can I ask what agencies you might recommend that cover the Home Counties around London?

I'm London based, relatively central so I'm afraid I don't know which agencies are good for the Home Counties. Your best bet is probably a local agency.

You could try Ellie at WrightAdvice, she might cover your area.

I wish I read this thread last year when I was looking for agencies.
I ended up with little ones,which I couldn’t recommend less, very bad experience, very high fee for nothing (nanny who stayed only 3 months).
then I tried Sanny nanny and had also a bad experience.
both agencies of course didn’t pay me back one cent.
And I ended up finding my nanny by myself, which I should have done from the start.

I’m really sorry you had that experience, especially when paying for an agency to help you find the right person.
I run a nanny agency, and when a nanny is described as passive”, from my experience it usually means the screening focused too heavily on personality and reliability, and not enough on how they actually engage with a child day to day.
For a four-year-old especially, the nanny should be planning stimulating activities, confidently managing outings, facilitating playdates, and genuinely engaging with the child.
One thing that often reassures families after not having the best experience the first time is knowing they’re supported beyond the initial placement. At my agency, I offer a 12-month replacement guarantee and ongoing support throughout the year, so if it doesn’t feel right, you’re not having to start from scratch again.
Your role sounds very clear and very reasonable and I know it sounds like a lovely job for lots of great nannies!

If you’d like to talk it through or want help figuring what to look for this time, you’re very welcome to message me. 😊

Where abouts are you based?

Second WrightAdvice or Eden. Im with both

I would just put your own advert on nannyjob.co.uk. (Although make sure you put a salary range). State exactly what you're looking for.

I never found an agency who did thorough background checks, never mind actually placing the best candidate with us.

This sounds creepy!

If you do go through small ads get independent references. Sometimes word of mouth is good.

🤣 the OP would have to be out of their mind, and no one should be offering to babysit a random child for free.