Families who don't say what they're prepared to pay a nanny...

[willowthewispa]

Why? Please, just say what salary you're offering!!!

I find negotiating so difficult, I don't want to ask for too much, but I don't want to undersell myself! Just had a family say they think I want too much, but have given no indication of what they're prepared to pay. How am I supposed to know?

On the salary guides, I've noticed that. But when they are there, they are either exceptionaly low or exceptionally high salaries that they show.

I can see why less experienced girls get less. I will be experienced when I start 'officially' nannying but not as experienced as older nannies, so I'd expect a lower salary and I'd like to know that I can make a career of it and earn more as I progress through experience. However, I know that my range and even amount of experience is brilliant compared to other girls my age, and therefore I'd like to earn a little more than them to show for it as I have experience in a multitude of settings and situations and a vast range of age groups, whereas other 20 year olds mostly have experience after doing a college course where they had to show up to placements twice a week and then a bit of babysitting too. Yes I've overly proud of my range and do expect to be treated more like a professional rather than a babysitter for it haha

On the notes of preferring experenced women for babies, I agree. I would not feel comfortable in a job with under-2's at the moment. Not until I get some solid baby experience and I would not apply to jobs with sole-charge of under two's until I get that experience because I would not be able to handle it well as I'd have no clue what I'd be doing!

And I realise I sound very conceited in my previous post, I don't mean it horribly, but I'm realistic and know that I am lucky to have more chances to gain experience, and over the next couple of yearsI'll be travelling and gaining experience whilst doing so, so it's not like I'm looking for a job now and expect brilliant pay or anything

Experienced woman for babies? I think you meant Experienced nanny for babies

What salary guides are you looking at? Do they say how they are compiled?

Sorry Nannynick! Yes that is what I meant sheepish

I was browsing some ages ago, I don't know where they are now. Mainly been looking at AP guides recently as am APing with partner next year, but it's the same with those, they say the reccommended AP pocket money in the UK overall is £60 a week on some sites, which is utter crap, maybe in London but not elsewhere! Whilst I remember a nannying agency stating that reccommended wage for their nannies was something like a tenner an hour outside of london whilst another (outside london too) was saying £6 hourly rolls eyes

Riven, whilst a less experienced nanny is techinally doing the same job he/she often requires a lot more management. SO, I think hiring a more experienced nanny does and should come with a higher price. And of course from the nanny's perspective she/he would expect to earn more money as she climbs up the corporate nanny ladder.

I find it quite annoying that parents do this so thanks for explaining why nanny employers. I think the thing I found annoying when I was at the interview stage was parents who would ask me what I wanted to earn - I would quote pretty much the standard London rate £300 -£350 net a week and they would nod then later ring me to tell me the au pair down the road had 'begged' them to give her the position and they felt they should 'give her a chance'
then ring you a week later because it has all gone wrong and would I work a full time sole charge nanny job for £80 a week.
That happened to me several times. Really annoying. I prefer to know up front what is on offer and then I will decide whether or not to attend the interview based on that. It's just fairer all round in my opinion than a lot of time wasting (on both sides)

Another nanny employer's perspective. If I want to have a temporary nanny or a part-time nanny, it probably makes sense to discuss rate per hour net, eg £8 ph (pretty usual rate around here).

However for a full time permanent job in other professions, you don't normally talk in terms of hourly rates, but instead in terms of annual salaries. Just as a guide, £8 per hour net grosses up at approx £27k including tax and NI. (Employers have to pay another £1.5k on top of this as a special NI contribution, by the way). An employer needs to earn about £42k before tax to cover this kind of outlay, and tbh not many people make that kind of money, particularly in the present climate. So it's a unrealistic thing to do IMO.

I think the reason behind this way of working out salaries is that inexperienced nannies often base their calculations on flawed reasoning. They take the minimum wage and add a bit on in their heads 'because they're worth it', forgetting that the minimum wage is before tax and net wages are after tax, leading to rates of £12+ an hour. They then roll this up by multiplying it by 50 hours a week, coming to a figure approaching that of an experienced graduate teacher aged 28 reaching the top of the pay scale. Nice if you can get it at age 18 or 20 or whatever, but possibly not always realistic.

The younger nannies who get worthwhile and sustainable jobs calculate things a bit differently IME. They seem to peg their earning expectations to annual rates for nursery pay and add a bit on to that. This results in an annual salary of between about £14k-£20k + which looks a lot more reasonable to employers.

Obviously nannies with specialist skills or bigger responsibilities living in expensive parts of the country might be able to command a higher rate, but a nanny is never going to earn the same as someone at the top of other professions, such as teaching, social work or nursing, simply because the number of jobs paying £500-£750 a week net are very very limited indeed, and often involve overseas travel (not always practical or possible).

The moral of the story is of course that salaries really ought to be agreed annually and gross if nannying is ever to achieve the respect it truly deserves amongst the professions.

There are some agencies who advertise nanny salaries as Gross Annual. I got my current job through such an agency.

I feel it is hard for us live-out nannies with a mortgage to pay to apply for jobs without knowing what salary we would be paid. When I applied for office work, there would often be a wage indication in the job advert.

I find it so annoying when nannies don't tell me straight up in the first line of their response to an ad what rediculous sum of money they are demanding.

I don't really feel this way, but thought I would point out that a waste of precious time goes both ways.

Besides, an employer doesn't know what he/she is prepared to offer until he/she knows what the curent market is charging.

If someone with comparable qualifications/experience comes forward and wants considerably less money, than that is what I'm offering.

ha ha ha AN..........Waves.............

BM your last sentence is the most sensible one on the thread.

I agree that most employers in the real world give a salary or range when advertsing a job. But this is always a gross figure pa.

nannies need to to satrt talking in the same figures to be honest so that both parties know where they stand.

Isn't it up to parents and agencies to start talking in gross annual figures? After all, they are the ones offering the jobs.

Does this mean that nannies will start doing extra hours as required without extra hourly pay, just as most people on annual salaries do?

Or do they want to be salaried employees when it suits them and hourly contractors when that suits them?

Oh, and... ^^

I think the problem is that every job is different and every family's budget is different.

Nannies are guilty of expecting more money when they move - which is, on one hand, fair because they're older/more experienced and on the other not because it's a different job and may have different hours or duties. Quoting current salary is one way which we could get around this: nannies can say "well I earn £X/week for X hours". The problem is when you have a very demanding (but highly paid job) and want an easier life. Personally I feel overpaid for the amount of work that I end up doing most weeks so quoting my weekly salary would be pretty unfair. Then I balance up my heaviest weeks and the same weekly salary doesn't feel enough of course! I just remind myself that I'm paid to be on call 24/5 even if on average I work less but inevitably sometimes I'm going to have to work it all. I won't expect my current salary in a new job because I don't want to do so much work!

Nannies need to have some way of working out what they're worth but unfortunately there isn't a handy guide which says:

No quals/exp - min wage
Level 2 qual - add 50p/hour
Level 3 qual - add £1/hour
Unrelated degree - add 75p/hour
Related degree - add £1.50/hour
For each cumulative year of experience - add 25p/hour
For each additional short course - add 10p/hour

So a nanny could go...okay, I'm 21 so I start at min wage for my age and I add my level 3 qual and I have 3 years experience and I did a short course on working with babies so I'm worth £X.

IMO nanny salaries rise too fast in the first few years - the first 2/3 years of experience seem to add about £1 an hour and then you get £1/hour for the next 5 years worth.

Employers need to work out the kind of nanny they want and specify a range depending on qualifications and experience. So if the job is MINIMUM level 3 qualified and 2 years s/c experience then clearly a nanny with that is going to get the bottom of the salary range.

MP do i not get a wave as well

but agree that nannys need to talk in gross wage, but so many dont as agencies dont, though i do go into a job and say i want xxxnett which works out around xxxgross just so the family has a vague idea, but obv you cant states excalty as nett/gross change tax wise

yes I agree AtheneNoctua (re the gross wage and thus expected to do extra hours every now and then like other employees!). Our current nanny is very good like this and completely accepts that every now and then the trains will not work and I might be slightly late though obviously, I am always intending to be back on time!

I am interviewing this week and will be interested to see what nannies are demanding (as I think the market is considerably different to when I last employed one almost 2 years ago!)

If nanny pay was quoted as gross salary it might stop the inevitable leaps of salary in 50p increments net per hour which are oft quoted.
If I get a payrise it is a percentage of my gross salary and although I earn 'good' money, it generally works out at £30-40 a month net, ie between 1 and 2 pounds per working day.
With nannies it seems to be 'I'm on £8 net per hour now, so an acceptable pay rise would be to £8.50 per hour net'..so for a 10 hour day, £5 per day net (=£86 per month net) and a cost to the employer of about £180 per month.

Actually if I compare nannying to my job - my employer pays for my experience, but only for a few years and then my salary is increased by an inflationary payrise only - unless I take on more duties...so in nanny terms you would expect to have increase in expected pay for the first 5 years or so and then a level 'career' level of pay unless they offer some extra skill that you need. (Does this reflect how nannies are paid?)

as a maternity nanny, I always quote gross and so many agencies ask "what's that in net?".

I have no idea as it depends on my annual income surely and not on a per job basis.

I don't know why nannies can't all work in gross figures.

millarkie* - I think that does reflect it quite well. I have 20+ years experience but pay rates would be pretty much the same for me as someone that has 10 years experience.

I also wouldn't expect a pay rise of 50p per hour as I realise what that equates to over a month - I would probably look at a % pay rise, which is what you would get in most other fields of work.

yep agree mallarke and nbee

nannies who are 25 are earning the same as i am (im 35)

agree that pay seesm to go up 50p per hour

you dont very often hear of a nanny earning say 8.70 an hr - its 8.50 or 9.00

at interviews i work out what i would like for the day, by using my hourly rate, so for a 10/11hr day i would expect at least £100nett and not say i want £10ph iyswim

Oh but Nbee you are a sensible MNing nanny
When I was researching nanny employment I spent time looking at the nannyjob forums and I saw so many 'ask for another 50p per hour' threads that I despaired
My first nanny (had previous nursery experience but no nannying (and turned out to be not very good to be honest)) was on the equivalent £320 net per week (it was a few years ago now) which was more than she was getting as a nursery nurse and she brought her own child with her. Within 3 months she was pointing out that another nanny she met (10+ years experience and NNEB and no children tagging along) was earning £500 net per week with the implication that I was under-paying. She really couldn't see the difference in the situation (obviously I told her if she was offered a job at £500 per week then I would give her my best wishes and a reference )

cheeky nanny bint!!

did she go then to find better paidgreener grass job?

Hey, Fox, you don't by any chance want a live in? I too am in hiring mode. I was talk to this young Polish girl who seemed positively fab and very reasonable price. But, then out of the blue word made it's way round that school gate that my old fab nanny who had left to go finish her degree was looking to come back to England. SO, of course I seized the moment and snatched her up. Anyway, if you are seeking live in, I could talk to the one I just turned down as I think she is still looking.

ah thanks Athene. How amazingly lucky for you that your old nanny is coming back! So nice for you and the children and I bet the nanny can't wait to see how they've grown!

I would love to take you up on the offer (and thanks for thinking of me) but unfortunately, we can't fit a live-in into the house.