Thinking about a nanny !!?

[Winklepea]

Hi

I am thinking about having a live out nanny, but have no idea of the cost! What is the going rate ? and what are the usual hours ? Would really appreciate some feed back as have no idea, and we are currently weighing up our options as we have more than one child !

Thanks in advance x

[Mum2be]

Hiya I am a nanny with child (not looking for position at the mo) nannies charge around 10-12 net ph for more than one child they work what ever hours they are contracted for some work 12 hours a day but if you only need 5 hours a day that's what you advertise for , a nanny should do house hold duties such as cooking for the children and keeping the nursery clean and tidy and washing for the children . Nanny shear is the cheapest option or nanny with child I charge ?8.00 ph net

Hope that helps a little you can find more info on nanny charges on simply child care

Also a good place to look for a nanny

Hollie

[snowboarder]

We have just used an agency to help us find a nanny - even if you didn't want to go down this route (as obv you pay them a fee!) I had a useful initial call with them just to establish basics such as salaries etc. We have 2 children and a nanny worked out cheaper and will hopefully be way more convenient than any of the other options.

[Adam]

Just to add to Hollie's post that you need to add an extra 1/3rd or so to cover tax/ national insurance on what you pay the nanny, plus obviously costs of food for her/ insurance, petrol etc if she uses your car.

It's a great option though if the financials work out - and lots of nannies looking for work at the moment, as you can tell from the EDF...

[LondonMix]

There have been some threads on this in the past. Depending on experience, there appears to be a pretty wide range: 8.5-10 per hour net. 20% more for a nanny share.

[tired]

IMO, the nanny 'rates' are hugely inflated on this forum - have a look on Mumsnet and you will see the the usual cost is ?8-9 nph for an experienced nanny in central London. Nannies with less than 3 years experience are usually more like ?7net. All nannies will tell you that their 'rate' is ?10 net but they are just trying it on. I fell for it the first time as I didn't know any better (agencies will tell you it is ?10 because it is clearly in their interests to do so), I also think nannies on this forum like to bid up the 'going rate' using their posts on the subject. Nannytax survey is skewed due to so many people not declaring their tax properly (ie those who do declare all are the top payers (me included!) and this skews the survey results).

Put it this way, I am the only person I know who has fallen for paying ?10nph - a friend of mine in Chelsea pays less! 10net on a 50 hour week is around ?35k - slightly crazy in my view.

Don't get me wrong, I am sure lots of people do pay ?10net but the nanny would probably be utterly outstanding and the job would likely be tough/hours long etc. When I interviewed for my second nanny (more wisely!), all the ones who claimed that they were already earning ?10 were funnily enough still interested when I said I was offering less...!

So don't be fooled like I was!

And don't assume that it's 'standard' to feed the nanny/pay them when off sick (over SSP)/pay for Ofsted fee etc etc. You will read and they will tell you that this is all 'standard' but again, I was the only person I know who fell for all this 'standard' nonsense. Anything is up for negotiation!

Sorry for the slight rant, it just annoys me when I see a first hirer being told the usual inflated rates.

Good luck!

[dulwichgirl2]

Completely agree with Tired. That is my experience and that of friends too.

[QZ]

Couldn't agree more with the last 2 posts. Lots of lessons learned second time round.

[Moos]

Can't comment on the going rate but as a matter of principle I'd argue that any responsible employer should pay for sick time, and pay for OFSTED. It is in the employers' interests that the nanny is OFSTED registered, as it enables them to pay the nanny from their pre-tax salary. There may be advantages for the nanny in being registered that I haven't thought of but it seems to me to be mostly for the benefit of the employer.

Nannies aren't self-employed contractors, they are employees and should be looked after.

[sillywoman]

50 hours a week?! That's exhausting just to think about.

[etta166]

All of this avoids the issue of the fact that there are good nannies and not so good nannies. Some nannies are worth ?10ph net and some are not. I know of several from play groups that I would not pay to look after my children at all, let alone pay them ?10 ph.

As for sick pay, again it depends on whether your nanny is a shirker who takes time off for a cold or not. Some nannies are off sick every other week for minor ailments and some will try to come in when they shouldn't be at work at all.

It's not very helpful to generalise the issue of pay, just as you wouldn't generalise the pay of all lawyers, accountants or any other profession.

The most important thing to think of when agreeing pay for a nanny is to agree on a gross annual salary and not net pay. There are lost of ways that an empolyer can lose out in a net pay agreement. The worst one is to have to pay the nanny's student loan payments or another dedution by the government on top of the salary. As these types of payment are deducted from your salary by the government it would therefore reduce someone's net pay below what your contract states.

[Mum2be]

I think a few of these posts are a bit harsh I'm speaking as a nanny and as a mother and as a nanny I'd say ?10 is an average wedge it's not a easy job you are stepping in for someone's parents it's a huge responsibility I do agree that the family should pay for ofsted as it is purely to benefit the employer not the nanny , holiday and sick should be in the contract as this is a job the same as any other of course you should pay holiday and sick . If your worried about the nanny not paying her tax then you pay it that's what your ment to do you are a employer not many nannies are self employed , or get proof of there tax payments .

For a mothers point of view I would look for the best I could for my son I wouldn't look for the cheapest and to be honnest I would be looking for a nanny that rates her self higher than ?6 or ?7 ph after all she will be looking after the most important being in my life you can't put a price on that !

Lucky enough I get to take my baby to work with me , I think my charge is very reasonable and its a shame us nannies have to read nasty comments to suggest we r in this job to rip people off , I happen to love what I do and all the families who I have worked for and I'd like to think I'm worth every penny

[Ruth_Baldock]

Not paying your nanny SSP? What a ridicolous statement! They are your employees; how would you like it if your boss refused you SSP?

Some of the extremeley anti-nanny viewpoints and sweeping statements on here(the forum in general...) are incredibly rude. And sad!

[Saffron]

I agree that everything is "up for negotiation". But equally, if you want someone to show care for your child/ren, you have to show care for that person.

When you think about cost, read about the London Living Wage, who earns it and why. Here's a good place to start: http://londonist.com/2011/05/london%e2%80%99s-living-wage-who-pays-it.php . The LLW is currently ?8.30/hr. The new rate is set to be announced in November.

Richard Barnes, Deputy Mayor of London

The London Living Wage is designed to help people towards a minimum acceptable quality of life in our capital.

[etta166]

Ruth_Baldock Wrote:

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> Not paying your nanny SSP? What a ridicolous

> statement! They are your employees; how would you

> like it if your boss refused you SSP?

I don't think that anyone is talking about refusing to pay SSP. Apart from anything else, it is completely illegal. What is negotiable is how much you get paid on the qualifying days (the first 3 days off where no SSP is payable), and whether the employer pays the full salary when you are off sick or just SSP.

Given that SSP is next to nothing, I can't imagine paying just SSP to someone who is off sick for a genuine reason.

[Saffron]

tired Wrote:

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>

> And don't assume that it's 'standard' to feed the

> nanny/pay them when off sick (over SSP)/pay for

> Ofsted fee etc etc.

From tired's statement, it did seem like the suggestion was not to pay. Thanks etta166 for clarifying where employers stand legally. Everything is most certainly negotiable, within the letter of the law.

[LondonMix]

I don't think anyone was being anti-nanny, just letting people know that things are negotiable. Also, the lowest wage anyone here suggested for a nanny just starting out was 7 per hour which would still be a gross income of 26k per year. The average London salary is only 28k so we really aren't talking slave wages. Please remember that the London living wage proposed by the mayor is Gross while the nanny rates being discussed here are Net.

[emza78]

?7 per hour for a 50 hour week = gross income of ?18,200 per year

[LondonMix]

7 NET for a 50 work week works out to 500 per week gross (10 per hour gross) which is 26k a year. The number you are quoting does not gross up for tax and national insurance. The London living wage is a gross rate as are statistics related to the average London salary so you are not comparing apples with apples.

emza78 Wrote:

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> ?7 per hour for a 50 hour week = gross income of

> ?18,200 per year

[dulwichgirl2]

Yes fair enough Etta (8:22am).

Employers must get over this bizarre feudal net wage quoting. Quote them a gross amount like everyone else is quoted and then act as a responsible employer and make the appropriate deductions.

[tired]

Etta, I completely agree - it all comes down to the quality of the nanny at the end of the day and how easy or hard the job is. For example, when the job includes the usual nanny duties, one child is perhaps in school or nursery and one or both children have daily naps, those are all factors that should influence the salary in a downwards direction.

Problem is, it is almost impossible to tell the quality of the nanny before she becomes ingrained in your life. As a novice, I was duped by what I thought were 'excellent' references but which I later came to realise were merely standard references. Winklepea, when you check refs, make sure you speak to the referees on the phone and I would not accept anything other than someone absolutely singing the nanny's praises! Of course, sadly as in all professions, there are a lot of very good references around which have been written by employers who are keen to shuffle their employee off their hands..that's why direct questions to the referee are always good.

I wasn't at all saying that nannying is an easy job - far from it (I find it much easier in my day job!) and I completely agree with Mum2be that being tight is not the way forward when recruiting someone to look after the most precious things in your life. But that is the point I was trying to make to Winklepea who started this post - many mums feel so pressurised by the emotional side of recruitment and their own guilt that they lose sight of appropriate value for the candidate and this is often exploited by nannies (I think "ripping off" is a horrible phrase) because quite frankly, why wouldn't a nanny take all she can get?

I wouldn't go for a job interview in my own profession and inflate information about my current salary so why should nannies - and they really do - not all of them but you have to be wary and wise as a nanny employer. Like I said, they all tell you their rate is ?10.

And back to my original point, Mum2be, there is no way that ?10net is "an average wedge" around Dulwich - that is completely fanciful. I know many people with nannies in this area and I do not know of one that pays so much (I am sure there are some that do pay it but it can't be the average). Even a (very friendly and lovely) local nanny agency has told me that they very rarely place nannies in this area on 10net.

and just for the record, I said "over SSP", ie that SSP is payable but a whole day's salary for being off is discretionary.

I like this thread - and I hope it comes in useful for mums looking to hire their first nanny.

[katgod]

Bear in mind taht an awful lot of cleaners on this Forum are charging ?10 an hour. Not all possibly but it does seem to me that ?10 an hour is becoming the going rate for cleaners. Of course they are not an employee in the same way, But I think it would be weird to pay my cleaner more than my nanny.

[tired]

V good point Katgod - but cleaners only do a few hours a week and they have to make their salaries up by visiting multiple houses over the week, traveling between them etc. Usually, the more work there is in a job, the less the hourly rate is.

Now I know I am at risk of causing a riot on here with my next statement but.... arguably cleaning is a harder job because it is extremely labour intensive, involves cleaning yucky bathrooms etc and is no fun at all.

[LondonMix]

That's true katgod but your cleaner is earning 10 gross (which is only 7 net). Even a busy cleaner would struggle to get paid for a full days work as they don't earn anything during travel time between jobs, which takes up a significant portion of the day and hence why their rates need to compensate for this. The two fields aren't really comparable so as parents I don't think we should feel guilty about such things even though on the face of it, it might appear odd.

Tired- I tend to agree with you. Clearly everyone has their personal dislikes but I find cleaning boring and would choose being a nanny over a cleaner hands down...

katgod Wrote:

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> Bear in mind taht an awful lot of cleaners on this

> Forum are charging ?10 an hour. Not all possibly

> but it does seem to me that ?10 an hour is

> becoming the going rate for cleaners. Of course

> they are not an employee in the same way, But I

> think it would be weird to pay my cleaner more

> than my nanny.

[MaiMai]

Most cleaners only do between 2-4 hours weekly, and do you pay them holiday pay??