Income needed for 2 sets of private school fees in London?

[Londonhither44]

I know these topics are always inflammatory (hence username change!) but am really curious, if you’re sending 2 kids to private school in London (in particular starting from a young age) and not relying on family help or inheritance but paying out of income, about how much do you make?

DH and I combined have what would be deemed a very comfortable salary, and pre kids I’d always assumed private school would be an option. We have 2 toddlers so now considering options more seriously. Looking at the fees now for the junior privates near us, if I add the fees for 2, plus wrap around care (which would be an absolute necessity to keep our jobs/incomes), plus our mortgage (a small London house, we aren’t overextending ourselves but any mortgage is pricey now..) and bills- we can do it, but not if one of us were made redundant or had to take a material pay cut. We work in finance so those are not totally remote risks.

Colleagues at our jobs with similar household incomes seem to have wildly different approaches which I suspect boils down to a combo of priorities, risk tolerance and the unspoken parental help.

Im not interested in turning this into a state vs private debate (please!) but rather seeking honest opinions on what income you felt was comfortable to take the risk with two London school fees? And if you felt you needed some kind of buffer in terms of savings / mortgage being paid off / parental help etc?

Name changed here:

£30K x 2 = £60k plus VAT
£5000 per month, I’d assume. Then adding extras, £6000 per month after tax. Plus need to assume 3-4 per cent uplifts per year!

I put one years fees in savings before I started, noting if I was made redundant I’d have another year from my company. I have continued saving and probably have 4 years fees now. We also have a buffer of investments to cover fees if really necessary.

No mortgage here and only one child. We go on decent holidays. You don’t need to know my disposable income but the amount I recommend in back up, is as I started, 1 year. If everything fails, you could always move to state. That was what my parents said to me…. you will always think you will never have enough otherwise.

Lots of people will come on here and say you need to be keeping up with the Jones and school uniform etc. point one is always dependent on the school but I’ve never felt like that - there’s many walks of life in private school; and uniform laptop costs. These are initial outlay. Assume £1k per child plus laptop but honestly these are not every year. I find I just need the odd item.

I was told in mumsnet I couldn’t afford to send my child to private school when I asked a similar question, and it’s just not true. We can afford it and have built up savings along the way.

We have a household income of approx £200k and have two kids in prep. It’s tight.

Thank you, super interesting and helpful. Although we need to account for a mortgage too which complicates things (especially as ideally we’d move somewhere bigger but that would make our risk even bigger..)

If you don’t mind me asking do you have a mortgage too?

in London, the state schools are great. Use the primary years to save for private at secondary and then you will be OK.

in our house, one parent's salary goes entirely on the school fees. the other parent pays everything else.

no mortgage family.

Toddlers,so reception in a couple of years? It'll be £35k each in reception, so for two you'll need to earn maybe £120k to take home that £70k after tax and pension etc. It will double between reception and sixth form. If you're thinking st pauls or westminster they are at least 50% more.

Same here and it felt too risky to me. I’ve saved the money and aiming to do private sixth form. Primary no issue but as we head to GCSEs I do find myself wondering if private might be better.
Our mortgage is very low.

Tbh this is my thinking at the moment. But I keep meeting people who are doing private from primary, and weirdly it makes me feel really guilty. It doesn’t seem they necessarily are all in super high paid jobs and it feels relatively speaking we should be able to afford it too (and if I’m going to spend my money on anything I want it to be my kids education).. but I’m just balking at the risk/stress..

Job security is not good now.
I know a few people who did this who got caught short due to redundancy etc. And it wasnt great.

If self funding and not a multimillionaire....
the most I would stretch to the going for st Paul's or westminster etc. at 8
Otherwise I'd just go secondary, you struggle to find a bad primary in my part of london... a bit of tutoring and off you go....

We make over 250k pa (dual income hh) and have 2 children i assumed we'd do private prep from 4+ but the numbers didnt stack up. We may do it for secondary but we will have saved ideally the full fees in advance (if we have less than 4 yrs its a no from me and that findig sits separately from our main investments).

If we get QE boys, HB, latymer etc I will struggle with the choice...because it quarter of a million or so... that can do a lot in terms of housing and university costs are only going one way

Depends on your mortgage size but you need about 6-7k net pm "spare" so prob 100k gross you wont miss...
On that basis I'd say about 250k once you factor living mortgage cars house repairs (ours seems to be 5k pa!??!) And pensions

It depends if you have any other big outgoings eg. mortgage. We are mortgage free so that makes a big difference. We go on holidays in fits and starts, not every year but have an expensive hobby.

We've managed to do private prep and now one at grammar school and the other moving to grammar school.

London has v good primaries so I would try them out first.

Why do you feel guilty?
London's schools are great. Only 7% af kids go to public school. It's a normal thing to go state.

We do have a mortgage (if our salaries enabled us to be mortgage free on a house in London I doubt school fees would be an issue!).
For anyone who did state primary to private secondary, was the transition ok for the kid? I would’ve thought this must be a more common route now?

If you have a low mortgage surely this would be fine on 200K??

It's very common but expect to pay for tutoring depending on which school you aim for.

I think it’s a sense that these other parents have found a way to invest in their kids but (despite our seemingly high paid jobs) we maybe haven’t? I know it doesn’t really make rational sense. Part of it if I’m being honest is my family is not British, but they are from a background that cares a lot about education / reveres the uk private school system. So it feels like almost like a failure on my part

With 7% of children in public schools and 93% in state you aren't a faliure.

We have joint income of about £230k and didn’t feel private for two kids is affordable on that. The eldest has just done GCSEs at an inner London comp and expecting really great results. I’m not 100% sure who is paying for private these days; people with a lot more money than we do I guess! We are happy with the choice we made.

With an average mortgage and still wanting to lead a normal life ie holidays, newish car etc I’d be looking at 300k household income to send 2 to private school.

You could of course do it on less but you could well end up leading quite a miserable life and also one redundancy away from being in a very tough financial position.

As others have suggested, I’d go state primary and invest what you can during that time so that when you move to private secondary you have a decent pot built up meaning you won’t be 100% reliant on income to fund the fees.

@Londonhither44 we don't live in London so house prices not such a big deal where we live.

DH is from London and went a prestigious London private school. None of his school mates in London are paying private school fees for their children despite being double income earners.. they all went state for their kids so I doubt you should feel guilty.

We started in state and moved to private in years 2/3 as our kids were bored at their school and the sports offering is pretty poor at the average state school. They went to private prep school.. one for 4 years and the other for 5 years. One has done GCSEs at private non selective school. She is moving to state grammar for sixth form in September.

DC2 moved from private prep to state grammar for year 7. A massive cultural shock. Went from 90% white and very wealthy to 40% white and more aspirational. Has been very good move educationally. Grammar school is very middle class but more professional than inherited wealth.

I would definitely go state school for primary & then weigh up your options. You don’t even know yet whether your DC would do any better in private education or not.

You’ll get a much better feel in a few years time. You may feel it’s better to spend the money moving to catchment of an excellent state school.

30+30=60 net so ~£120k gross before you even start, and don’t forget they are only in school for half a yr (says she at the beginning of summer holidays!) so you need to factor in a contingency for holidays / half term… and drop off / collection / wraparound if you both work…

We did state primary in SW London and both kids now at top notch independents. Did some tutoring for about a year plus Atom. No issue at all with transition educationally or socially. If money is a concern I would recommend this approach.

As someone who is state educated myself, I think it’s no bad thing for kids to have at least part of their education in the state sector so they aren’t in a private school bubble the whole way through and get to broaden their horizons somewhat.

£250k combined which is about £10k a month
Only 1 DC

£2k mortgage
£2k bills and food
£2k school fees (primary)
£1k fun / days out / holidays
£1k savings / investments for DC (JISA and JSIPP)
£1k savings / investments for us
£1k commuter costs and work lunches / coffee

I wouldn’t be able to do it with 2 kids and live as comfortably as we do now

We prioritised primary given these are the formative years. Wanted DC to really have a strong foundation in everything - values, behaviours, and how to learn well, have a good sense of who she is etc.

Senior school fees are higher so we will see when we get there if it still makes sense to continue in private. Mortgage should be paid off by then so that will help.

I sent DD private (when fees were £17k Pa!!) once I had c£70k post tax income - didn’t want any kind of struggle