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 have £250k household income and only one child, and wouldn’t pay for private - as a PP says, just too financially risky to tie up all that money for 12 years. We also live in an area with lots of outstanding primaries and secondaries, so really no need.

Of all my colleagues, on similar household salaries, the only ones who are sending their kids private are not funding it themselves (generous/loaded grandparents).

Ha, we also thought that, until DS started playing tennis and rugby around Dulwich, and I met the actual target demographic for those schools - and it is not us.

What's the demographic for those schools?

Significantly wealthier than us, put it that way. £2.5m houses in Dulwich Village, FT nanny even when the kids are school age, big cars, multiple long haul holidays.

I know “normal” people who send their DC to DC, but grandparents are paying.

Dulwich College isn't exactly typical. It's a boarding school which looks like Hogwarts, in one of the most expensive and beautiful suburbs of London.

There are many private school pupils whose families don't have that lifestyle, and whose parents are paying fees themselves. But not many of those families live in Dulwich.

@gobbledoops start doing the sums now, and figure out what's possible and what your priorities are. If your children are small, perhaps you haven't moved into your final 'family home' yet and still have options about where to move to and how much to push yourselves on mortgage. Now is absolutely the time to start looking at different school options for them: state and private.

It depends what you mean by comfortable. For us, approx 200k means we can afford fees for two, fill up our ISA allowance, contribute a reasonable amount into pensions and pay off the mortgage. But we don’t have holidays abroad, gym, cleaners or a nice car - but we don’t want those things so I’d still say we’re comfortable. Pre private school we were putting insane amounts into our pension and overpaying the mortgage.

You're right that it is about choices.

But our mortgage is huge and it's not an especially "flash house". It's a house in an average London suburb with a bedroom for each of our children, us and a home office.

If we moved into a 3 bed flat, we probably could make private school work but we're not living in a mansion here

It depends what 'other' costs people have.
We have household income of circa £200k and no mortgage. No cleaner / gardener and shop at Aldi. 3 cars.. two of which we bought in the last 18 months.
Total holiday cost per year circa £10k.
We have kids at private school each circa £20k.
But we can't afford the £60k boarding school fees and maintain lifestyle..
So it depends on the lifestyle you choose..

Agree, it is the “not living in London” part that is key here I think! We live in a three bedroom ex-council house. A nice one, but not a “flash house” by any description.

I'm not sure I recognise those parents. Maybe 10% of parents I know at private schools... I live in the area. Maybe houses around 1.2-1.4 mln, about 50/50 on the after school nanny, no cars to school mostly cycling, 1-2 holidays a year (mostly European)... Still very expensive to live like that though, no doubt. Mortgage is insane nowadays, unless bought 10 years ago...

Maybe I’ve just met a bubble of them then! I didn’t say it was all of them. But somebody is living in those houses in Court Lane and Burbage Road, and their children are all going to school somewhere…

Nursery parents (and us) are as you describe, and most sent their children to Dulwich Village Infants, Judith Kerr or St Jude’s not DPL or JAGS.

I'm not sure private school is that important and I send my kids to one. What matters is you are invested and spend time on their education lz music sport etc

Yeah no idea where the parents send their kids by street. Definitely a bubble from my side too, I just know dpl and hhs kids at reception. Maybe different as they get much older...

I agree with this. Some of our friend’s kids who don’t go to private school are having a far richer education and life experience than those that do.

I am sure lots of people we know will be horrified that we are taking our DCs out of private education (well trying to with DC1, who doesn’t yet have a state place) but will continue to travel a lot, attend big sport and music events around the world etc. We are also now planning to take the six week summer break as unpaid leave to take longer trips. As I said upthread I am now grateful that what started as a bit of a nightmare has allowed us a reset on family life.

I read that in our London borough (Camden), 38% of teenagers attend private secondary schools. That stat was from 2021 (and an increase from 2019), but I don't know how much it has changed since then. The borough includes areas like Hampstead, Highgate, Primrose Hill and Belsize Park, so lots of super rich parents. It's very much the norm to have nannies here, and I've met a few sahms at toddler groups who had ft housekeepers (they had 1 or 2 dc). We always feel poor compared to them!

Yes that makes sense for the first year or so, but with the 30 free hours from 3 etc that cost saving reduces significantly, and the ones I'm talking about do have school aged child/ren.

Is your mortgage over £3k a month!? 😥

I'm not sure where I read this but I think the percentage in London is higher than the UK overall. I think it is about 10% in Greater London and 6% outside of London. And higher in inner London than outer London.

We are in London (untrendy Z3, bog standard semi). Mortgage is considerable. We have outstanding primaries/secondaries nearby.

I went to private school and assumed I would send my children, but I wouldn't do it unless I had a few years saved up, earned over £350k as a household and were both happy and settled in our jobs.

These things are sadly all not true for me, so state it is!

I don't think SAHMs of school age children are at all common and I think it is viewed as a luxury

Yes our mortgage is over 3k a month .. that isn't unusual for a fairly normal family home in zone 3

I was curious about the stats on that so I looked it up. In 2023 26% of mothers of children aged 5-14 years were not in work, so that's a significant minority and not exactly rare. Far higher than the percentage of pupils in independent schools.

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/childcare-and-early-years-survey-of-parents

"Among families with children aged 5 to 14 years only, almost three quarters (74%) of mothers reported that they were in work, in line with 2022 (77%). There was a decrease in the proportion of mothers working full-time with children aged 5 to 14 years only to 41% in 2023 from 46% in 2022, but the proportion of mothers working part time was in line between the survey years (32% in 2023 and 31% in 2022)"

We have joint income of £350-£400k and paying school fees for 2 DC is ok BUT we have a (relatively) small mortgage and decent savings. We had children a bit later in life so we were already pretty set up financially.

If we also had to factor in a big mortgage and additional saving for retirement (we couldn't work until 68 in our current jobs - too stressful, we are aiming for late 50's) it would not be possible without making sacrifices elsewhere.

Also fees generally increase more than our pay - so what is manageable now may not be in 5yrs time. We roughly worked out what fees would be in total and split it so we pay/ set aside the same amount each month - school fees of £40k pa quickly turns into £60k pa with 5%+ increases compounding.

We spend 1/3, invest 1/3 for retirement and pay/ set aside 1/3 for children's fees/ future.

On £200k gross? No. We wouldn't do it. Tbh I am questioning our choices right now - we could drop our hours to 0.6 FTE earn £200k gross and have the same lifestyle without school fees plus more time with DC ( this is why I think VAT will back fire, we could end up reducing our tax contribution by £75k and taking two state school places).

That's my dream, to work 60% and have much lower mortgage and more time with the kids. But it'll be quite a few years until we can afford to do that with our mortgage. It's literally mortgage eating up everything ATM

@poseantura but I suspect quite a lot of those are between jobs rather than permanently SAHM, have children with significant additional needs or have very low earning potential. Which don't feel like particularly luxury choices. I must know over 100 mothers of school age children from various places and I think I only know one where I think it's a genuine choice to SAH.

exprecis I don’t think it’s very common among ‘normal’ middle class professionals, but most of our friends who work in investment banking/ funds and quite a few in City law have ended up with one SAHP in the end. So there is perhaps a disproportionate number of SAHP with kids in London private schools.