What’s the comfortable household income for private school in London?

[gobbledoops]

Just that really. I have spoken to a few colleagues who are in the 200K household income range, which to my mind would have put them comfortably in the private school for two DC zone, but who are sending their kids to state schools because of financial concerns. So, private school parents, what do you earn to be comfortable sending two kids to private schools and paying for after school care, mortgage and all the bills?

Let’s not make this a VAT thread please.

We just don't live comfortably, that's how. I have no pension and haven't been on any holidays whatsoever for five years. Car is 14 years old.

Your initial question was more like "what income is needed to have it all". Well, very few people actually have it all.

We earn £310k plus 20% bonus each
Put £25k pa each into pensions

Decided not worth cutting £20k hol budget (5 of us), particularly near a v good non selective N London secondary with 26 kids a class- when local private schl also has 26 kids a class .. and costs £26k pa (also v cramped premises as class sizes used to be 16 max)

Not worth it

We take home just over £200k and it would be too much of a stretch. We looked at it a while ago and decided to spend the money on an asset instead so moved to an undesirable area with great schools, and bought a bigger, more expensive property. Our mortgage is higher but we still have more disposable income and a nicer home environment had we made the decision to try to pay for fees.

Best thing we did was not buy a flash house and live walking distance to the private school the kids go to (and not live in London)

People who live in massive houses with massive mortgages, upkeep, gardens to manage etc are insane. Have a small manageable, safe house with lower outgoings and enjoy life (and send kids to private school if you want).

This is definitely doable on 200k in London. Your post tax is 120. Rent a 3 bed flat somewhere nice for 3k a month leaves you 85k. Fees are 45k. Live on 3k post tax a month.

305k here between us plus dividends and small bonuses take us up to around 350 most years and no we do not feel comfortable enough for private school. Of course we could afford it, not pleading poverty at all but we enjoy having lots of disposable income and need to focus on topping up pension.
What I’ve realised is so many professionals earning 200k + have really comfortably off parents who give them loads. Which makes sense. We are not living the same kind of life as lots of our friends who make similar money because no one gave us a house deposit/pays school fees/ has a second home where we have holidays/pays for massive family holidays etc etc. We have a lovely life and I am NOT complaining but if you want to live in a nice house in a nice bit of London, have 2 kids, shop at Ocado and Waitrose, have a couple of nice weekends away each year, host everyone at Christmas, have two weeks nice holiday in the summer and a week at Easter, not worry about day to day spending and pay into a private pension then you are not also going to be able to pay school fees on top of you’re on 300 unless your parents are helping you.

Grandparents funding it perhaps.
Plus children who are there are bursaries and scholarships are included in the % of kids educated privately.
I also assume the numbers include international students who are boarding in the UK and would never be eligible to go to state school.

As a pp said, it is achievable at least for 1 child on household income of £200k if you have a mortgage < £400k (ie outside the SE or a smaller home or bought a while ago), few childcare costs... and prioritise it. You just won't have the luxury lifestyle someone might imagine that gross income would give.

People here on high income who say they've chosen not to are being quite clear that it's a lifestyle choice. And the original question was 'what income is comfortable' which is a 'how long is a piece of string' question.

Likewise, many families on much more average salaries with a SAHP could make a choice for both to go back to work fulltime and privately educate 1 child if that was their priority. That would be much more than 7% of children if everyone did want to prioritise that way. .

A higher than average number of DD's classmates are only children. Also, more of them have 2 FT working parents than I see amongst state school friends.

It's fine and normal for different families to prioritise earning/spending differently.

Take home pay for a £35k salary (UK average) is £29k, which is enough to cover one set of £21k (UK average) senior school day fees.

No one is saying that's the right thing to do on an average household income, but it does highlight the extent to which these things come down to choice.

No one really questions how so many families can afford to have a SAHP (approx 10% of mothers are SAHP + 1% of fathers)

My base salary is 176k per year, my take home pay per month after all deductions including pension, private health care etc, is £8,600. My mortgage is £3,400 per months and council tax and all bills probably add up to another 1k, then there is childcare, food and all the other stuff kids need. My middle son goes to a private school (secondary) and the fees are 9k per term. My ex husband is supposed to pay half but rarely does and if he does he pays in dribs and drabs. I struggle to find 9k at the beginning of every term as I just don't have 9k sitting there. I now use School Fee Plan which spreads the cost so I pay 2k per month every month. Still crippling.

I think that outside London, but still in the south you need a household salary of £200k, to send 2 DC and live reasonably comfortably. Obviously many manage to do it on a lot less, but 2 kids at an average private school is going to cost the best part of £40k going forward.

It's actualy something like 5.8%, nothing like 10% these days. And loads of those are kids at sixth form who are there for a couple of years only.

Also - people are doing the "You need at least 300k!" thing in part because they are assuming that everyone is funding school fees themselves. Whereas in reality, a lot of families are basically having school paid for by grandparents.

UK private schools are insanely expensive though. We use a private secondary in Tokyo, no way would we pay for UK private school fees if we were to come to the UK to live. I'd live near a good comprehensive school and pay for tutoring where needed.

Plenty of families pay for private school out of income with no family help. We do.

No family help with getting on the housing ladder either, but we're old enough that we bought before house prices sky-rocketed out of reach (although they had already doubled in the few years before we bought).

Since then, salaries have increased by about 50% and house prices and rents in the SE have tripled.

So I'm not sure whether we would have done the same things if we had started 10 years later. We could have: by buying a flat for our first home and trading up to a small house or one in a not-so-good location. But I suspect we might have stretched ourselves more on mortgage, which wouldn't have left enough for fees - which seems to be the case for some pp.

I really sympathise with people facing the enormous house prices in the SE without existing equity. Especially just now when rates are so high. I do think that the huge regional differences in house prices are really harmful for everyone.

All of the above and some will run up debt. I know people who are extending mortgages every two years to cover fees, for example.

Just wanted to add that primary vs secondary also makes a big difference. Prep schools around us cost £17k while secondaries can get close to £30k. So if you add 20% VAT on top, the whole set of fees for two children can be £40k vs £72k. It’s not trivial for households with £300k gross income, which post-tax is not even £200k.

Also, many (not all) careers that pay in that range come with some risk - which justifies the pay. Some are niche specialists or have to be responsible for P&L in some form. Job security is not as high as other people may think.

To the original question, I think “comfortable” to send two kids in London to private schools would be £400k with at least a few years of fees already saved up. Obviously people’s comfort levels will differ but this would be it for us.

Very interesting replies. We are in the 200K household income bracket ourselves and I always thought that we were absolutely the target demographic for the many local private schools. My two are still little, so I have yet to do my sums, but it never even occurred to me that we would struggle to afford two sets of fees.

This! Somehow private school (20k a year) is seen as insanely expensive, but having a SAHP is barely questioned. I have friends with totally useless husbands, haven't worked for years and no intention of anytime soon, that's a much more expensive in terms of lost income than private education! Never gets mentioned though.

@gobbledoops if you will still be paying a mortgage when your dc are at secondary and if your income is unlikely to increase beyond the rate of inflation before then yes, it will be a struggle. Next year’s secondary day fees in London for 2 dc with lunch, coach, music lessons comes to £50k pa. Not one of the most expensive schools either. Mortgage payments £36k pa. Council tax, power and gas, insurance (house/car/valuables) £10k pa. All from after tax income. And this is before we get to other essentials like food (!) and car running costs and certainly before optionals like paying into ISAs and pensions, clothes, gym membership, private health insurance, dental insurance, holidays and presents.

I think it does get mentioned but a big difference is that SAHP also save money in childcare costs. There aren't many SAHP to school age children.

We have about 200k income and I don't think we can comfortably afford private school for two children.

After tax and pension contributions, it's about 120k.

Private school for two in London is about 50k

Our mortgage - thanks Liz Truss - is about 40k a year

Leaving us about 2,500 a month to cover bills, wraparound, school holiday clubs, extracurriculars, food, commuting costs, holidays. And that's without a car or pets which are things many families have/want. Plus we need to save for university as our kids won't get maximum loans.

I guess if we really tightened our belts we could but it wouldn't be easy

Reading this thread with great deal of interest, would love to know what careers you high earners have..bit nosey tho I guess..😊

Obviously depends on housing costs. But assuming a normal London cost of housing then I think £400k per year.

I agree with the £300K+ for two children in private education.

We lived in London until 2023 - one child in private school, joint income of around £250K (plus a London mortgage and usual Zone 2 living costs) - and were financially comfortable, but didn't have oodles of cash for tropical holidays.

And that's just primary school, secondary fees really ramp up.

If we had a second child, they would both have been in state education.

I would say far, far fewer children in London seem in this borough in private school now than used to be even 3 years ago. All the lawyer, consultant, IT parents on £100-£150 each are sending their children to state schools. Quite a number are very generous to the school (what’s £5k when you were contemplating £50k!).