Min wage announcement Oct 2024 for april 2025

[worldwidetravel2017]

.. nursery staff are often paid lowly.

Current min wage is 11.44

Many nursery staff are paid anywhere from 10p to 3 gbp over that per hour..

What do we think the new min wage rise will be ?

As a nursery owner, I dread to think.

Put it this way, if minimum wage rises dramatically and funding rates don’t rise in accordance, the nursery sector will collapse. Unless you want to pay fees of 40k plus per year.

I wish all nursery staff aged 18 and over were on 15 gbp gross

Fair pay for fair work / hard work..

Inflation / cost of living crises

I was looking online at nurseries for sale - many with big profits / turn over apparently

I don't know, but nurseries can't afford to pay more without more funding.

At some ages, 1 nursery worker can only care for 3-4 children. To ensure holiday & sick cover, call that 3 children. = each child needs to be funding a baseline of 1/3 the nursery worker's salary + pension contributions, NI etc.

Then factor in all the building, utility, insurance, business expenses etc & you'll see that each parent probably needs to essentially be funding the equivalent of a nursery worker's wage for them to be running any profit.

Already a shortage of nursery spaces around x

This is nonsense. Nurseries do not make big profits - it’s impossible for them to do so. Look at how many staff are required compared to the maximum income that can possibly be generated. Now compare that with a corner shop. Both incomes are about the same, but how many overheads does a corner shop have in comparison to a nursery?

£15 an hour is pie in the sky nonsense. Nursery staff can demand it, but all it would do is drive up costs, making nurseries unaffordable for everyone.

Look online at the nurseries for sale
And whats listed for price , turn over etc

Turnover is not profit and if there’s that many for sale that should tell you something

The unnecessary work load of a nursery practitioner needs to be greatly reduced so the job reflects the low pay they receive. The un realistic increasing workload is what is driving good staff away not necessarily the money itself.

I think its a mix of work load and wages

Recent press coverage has been anticipating just under £12 per hour

Staffing levels are an interesting one, and key given it must be the largest cost. People are always keen to point out how expensive a nursery place is, and it's must cheaper elsewhere, yet in other parts of Europe it can be 1 worker for 6 (Ireland, Germany) or even 8 (France, Norway) children. I make no judgement about what's actually right for the child because I am not qualified to do so, but it would certainly be more affordable here (and perhaps tackle the skills/labour gap) if these ratios were revisited

Early Years Ratios - Understanding the Staff to Child Ratio in Early Years (eden-ts.com)

Sure let’s just keep increasing minimum wages and squeeze out any remaining businesses.

It isn't only the low wages that makes nursery staff leave.

It's the long hours - 7am -6.30pm is a potential shift where I work, it's being expected to be full time educating children but then having to be SENDCo, Speech and language therapist, health visitor and all the other children services that have been made obsolete. Being treated as if we just play all day while the professional role is ignored.

It's being cook and cleaner on top of your main role. Dealing with more and more SEN and behavioural issues without getting funding for one to one's.

The system needs to decide if we are there to educate or if we we are there to trouble shoot and try to get children with complex needs ready for a mainstream school space.

Nursery staff do an extremely complex and professional role these days and wages really don't reflect this.

Nursery staff do an extremely complex and professional role these days and wages really don't reflect this.

^ so very , very true

Absolutely this. The UK government does not value the importance of early years education or the professionalism of the staff who work in private day nurseries. They work very long hours and are often paid pence above the minimum wage. Room leaders and managers have massive responsibility. Sadly their salaries are low and their qualifications, experience and professionalism are not reflected in their renumeration. So many well qualified and experienced staff are leaving the sector. They earn more in retail. The system is broken.

I hope the funding is increased but I suspect nurseries will be at the back of the queue for hand outs.

It would be cheaper to 1) increase the hourly rate of funding, 2) make all nurseries exempt from paying business rates (as local authority nurseries are) and 3) remove the requirement for nurseries to pay VAT on goods and services (as they have for local authority nurseries).

It is supposed to be an ‘even playing field’. If it actually was, the sector would not be in such crisis.

System = definitely broken
I agree

This is the reason so many amazing staff are deserting the private sector to work in local authority nurseries.

private sector pay is abysmal.

Yep