How much for an au pair in London?

[londonone]

Just wondering how much it costs to employ an au pair in london? Do they need an ensuite etc or is a good sized spare room okay? How long do they stay and what are your obligations as an employer? How do they compare costwise witha nanny living in?

Thanks

£80 a week seems pretty standard. They don't need an ensuite but the ones I know share a bathroom with the kids while the parents use another. Re hours, they are set hours and I will dig out a link.

www.normalewisdomesticstaff.co.uk/What_is_an_Au_Pair_Home_Office_Guidelines.aspx

Thanks, that is great.

Anyone got any good experiences/horror stories to share?

Pocket money for 25 hours a week would be £65-80, then you need to add on food costs, increase in bills (heat/light as they are home during the day), some people offer travel costs (bus pass or car use), and often a UK mobile phone/credit and sometimes money towards their language classes. (We offer a 16-24yr railcard, gym membership and car+petrol but we are not London so it's harder to recruit).
Ensuite is not necessary but it's common to share a bathroom with kids only. You should provide a room large enough for a desk for them to study at - we give ours a computer and tv/dvd in their room so they have somewhere they can relax and watch their own tv/surf/skype their friends etc.
We have found that most au pairs want to stay 1-3 months, we prefer to find one that wants to stay at least 6 months, a few will want to stay for a year or so. We recruit EU au pairs only so we don't have to worry about visa regulations - the visa regs changed last November so the 'au pair' visa doesn't exist anymore, outside the EU the au pairs need to have a tier 5 visa (I think).
Obligations as employer are the same as any other employee - paid holiday (28 days a year including bank holidays minimum), contract stating terms of employment..etc).
Costwise with a live-in nanny they are cheaper but they do a different job! Au pairs have no childcare training (generally) and are mostly suitable for older children - to keep an eye on them before/after school and do some light cleaning. Nannies tend to have qualifications (or at least a significant amount of childcare experience) and tend to work 10-11 hour days sole charge of children from birth upwards (but most won't do your cleaning ). Horses for courses!
We had a live-out nanny until both children were school-age and then 'downgraded' to an au pair. Current au pair is lovely, kids adore her and if I could adopt her I would

Costwise with a nanny they cost you the difference in salary if you just provide the same benefits. So a nanny may have cost you £400 a week gross, an au pair will cost you £80 because they don't earn enough to pay tax/make NI contributions however you might have to provide additional things for an AP that you didn't for a nanny.

Re visas: what millarkie says is correct - Tier 5 visas are available to nationals of sepcific countries however you may get applicants with a tier 4 visa, which was the old student visa, and they can only work up to 20 hours a wek and their studies must take priority.

As usual - everything that Mill just said.

Only thing I have said is we have had a Canadian and an Aussie (both covered by the tier 5 visa - the other two countries are New Zealand and Japan) and their visas came through very quickly and easily and we had to do nothing to help them.

But you cannot employ APs from outside the EU or these 4 countries (so USA is a no).