Posts filed under ‘Job Hunting’
As a live-out nanny I have a 8 mile commute to work, then the same 8 miles back home again. This journey takes me around 15 to 20 minutes depending on traffic.
In a previous nanny job I have had a 15 mile commute to get to work which would take typically 30 to 40 minutes, sometimes longer getting home as the job finished at peak traffic time.
In another nanny job I worked 3.5 miles (by road distance) away from home, which took an average of 10 minutes to drive.
Why am I telling you all this about how far I have travelled to work? Well when looking for a live-out nanny, I feel that parents will be wanting a nanny who is not having a long commute.
There are several factors that should be considered:
- How far the nanny is driving to/from work – distance by road.
- If the nanny is not driving – then how are they getting to work and how far are they travelling?
- How long the journey typically takes.
- How much that journey costs.
Nannies I feel need to consider the cost implications of travelling to/from their home to their place of work. I have been tracking the cost of fuel for my car since 2008, when it was a typical cost of 9.5p per mile. Fuel costs are on the increase and even a small car like mine now costs 14p per mile in fuel. Whilst the rise in fuel cost from 2008 to 2012 has only been 4.5p per mile in my case, the further you travel to/from work, the more you will notice the increase in cost.
I read on Mumsnet recently about a nanny who had a 50 mile commute to/from work. That’s 50 miles, each way. The discussion on Mumsnet was started because the nanny had resigned from the job after just a few weeks, due to the distance they were travelling to/from work. It may not have been the only reason why the nanny resigned but it was a factor. Before agreeing to work for a family, nannies I feel should consider how far they will be travelling to work. Parents also need to consider if they are happy with how far away a nanny lives.
There can be no general guide to how far it is reasonable for a live-out nanny to travel to work, as it will vary depending on the location. In some areas even a short journey can take a long time, such as in cities along heavy traffic routes, whilst in other areas the same distance can be covered much quicker. When applying for a nanny job, I feel nannies need to consider how far they will be travelling to work and the route they would take.
May 23, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Nannies in London seem to me to be able to earn more than nannies outside of London, even those who nanny 20 miles outside of London.
Nanny agency The Nanny Tree (follow them on Twitter) recently posted some details of the salaries of nannies they recently placed in nanny positions in Greater London (inside the M25).
- Richmond – 50hrs – 5yrs nursery exp, 18mths as a nanny, 1st aid & CRB, willing to become Ofsted registered
£13.50 Gross
(cost to employer 2012/13: £39,022 Nanny take home (810L) £2205 per month)
- Wimbledon – 40hrs – 3yrs nanny exp – 1st aid & CRB, Ofsted registered
£12.05 Gross
(cost to employer 2012/13: £27,570 Nanny take home (810L) £1635 per month)
- Croydon – 40hrs – 5yrs nanny exp – 1st aid & CRB, Ofsted registered
£13 Gross
(cost to employer 2012/13: £29,825 Nanny take home (810L) £1747 per month)
Richmond is in Surrey. I also nanny in Surrey, so would you expect that I was on a similar salary? Well I can tell you that as I nanny just outside the M25, my salary (when calculated hourly) is around 20% lower. As the bird flies, Richmond is about 11.4 miles away from where I nanny.
Why the difference – it is impossible probably to know. No two nanny jobs are ever probably exactly the same. Parents have different incomes and have higher or lower expenditure. A nannies salary is something that parents decide and then offer the job at the salary they have determined. Nannies either apply for it, or they don’t.
There are bound to be nanny jobs in other parts of London which are paid higher and lower. If you are thinking of working as a nanny in London, don’t expect that all jobs will pay this sort of salary… some won’t. If you are a parent in London considering employing a nanny, then calculate what YOU can afford to pay and feel is right to pay for the job on offer.
Do I want to be paid more… well, not if it means moving to Richmond. I would far prefer to live in the place I live and work in the place I work. Richmond may well be nice, it may well be less busy than central London but from my past visits to that area I would say it is more busy than where I live and more heavily populated.
Nannies may compare salaries but the salary isn’t the only thing that makes a job a good job – the relationship with employers (parents) and the children is also an important factor. People change jobs for various reasons, salary may be a reason but it isn’t always the reason.
So whilst the pastures may be greener elsewhere, I for one am perfectly happy where I am, even if that means I am not being as highly paid as other nannies in other parts of Surrey.
February 25, 2012 at 7:42 pm
In the 2011 Nannytax Nanny Wages Survey, employers were asked about the gender of their nanny.
The survey was completed by 1244 employers and 95 nanny agencies. Of those who responded to the question, 2.4% (23 respondents) said that they either employ a male nanny, or had employed a male nanny.
As a male nanny myself, I feel this is great news as it means more parents are willing to consider a male nanny than they were 10 years ago (though I only base that on my personal view of the nanny job market, as I am not sure there was any nanny survey done 10 years ago asking about gender).
The full survey results have not yet been released but you can read a summary of the findings on the NannyTax website and Nursery World magazine are expected to shortly publish more details from the survey.
Parents: Do you/would you employ a male nanny?
Nannies: Do you know/have you met any male nannies?
January 14, 2012 at 11:12 pm
It is that time of year, Christmas is approaching, which also means that it is Nanny Salary Survey time.
For many years now Nannytax (nanny payroll company) and NurseryWorld (magazine) have been collating and publishing the results of a nanny pay survey. The survey can help give parents and nannies an indication of what salaries are typically paid to nannies working in London, Home Counties, and other areas.
I am not sure how the survey has been done in the past. I think it has mostly been via nannytax clients and people who read Nursery World magazine. At the bottom of the wages table in the 2010 survey it said “All figures are calculated from the 80 nanny agencies and the 485 Nannytax clients who completed the 2010 Nannytax”. This year, nannytax are making the survey available for all employers of nannies (in the UK) to complete.
All survey participants are given the chance to enter a prize draw to WIN £500 worth of Boden vouchers! So there’s an incentive for any parent who feels they need an incentive to complete the survey.
By completing the survey I feel you get to inform the producers of this survey and thus other parents looking for a nanny in 2012, plus nannies themselves what sort of salaries are realistic in today’s marketplace. It may also mean that more information is made available about how nanny wages vary around the country, though it isn’t known yet how the data collected from this years survey will be shown once it has been collated.
Previous survey results:
Nannytax wages survey 2010
Nannytax wages survey 2009
NannyJob salary guide (historic data 2000 to 2008)
Using the sources above, we can get a feel for how salaries have changed over the years. For example the graph below shows how the salary for a Live Out nanny in the Home Counties (so I guess that means Surrey, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Sussex, Bedfordshire, Hampshire) has changed over the years.
Live-Out Nanny Wages in Home Counties 2000 to 2010
The graph above though is based on the salary surveys conducted by nanny agencies and from information provided by clients of Nannytax. So this year’s survey could well make a lot of difference if it’s completed by parents who don’t use a nanny agency or use the nannytax payroll company. Time will tell as to how many employers of nannies in the UK complete this survey. If you do employ a nanny in the UK, please do consider completing the survey so that other parents and nannies know what salaries are realistic.
Related post: Nannies Salaries Increase Away From London
November 12, 2011 at 10:45 pm
Here in England we used to have a childcare search facility provided by the Government. At the time it did not list nannies as back then nannies did not have the option of becoming a registered childcare provider.
In March 2011 the Government system was terminated, following having been changed a year or two earlier. Local authorities have a legal duty to provide parents with information about childcare, so many local authorities continued to provide information via their own websites and via a helpline phone number. This is widely known now as Family Information Service.
Nannies have never been a great part of that, though once Ofsted started enabling nannies to choose to be registered (so parents could pay using Childcare Vouchers / Tax Credits) information about nannies was being published by local authorities. I am a nanny but my local authority record says that I am a Home Child Carer. Not all Home Child Carer’s are nannies, some are more like Childminders. So finding a nanny using a local authority database is not easy but is possible.
Open Family Services (OFS) are aiming to link together all the local authority childcare provider databases so that parents can find childcare providers at a time convenient to the parents. It is an ongoing project which not all local authorities are yet providing data but it seems to me to have potential.
Finding a nanny using OFS is not easy at present and may never be easy but it is possible by searching for Home Child Carer and entering the first part of your postcode. There are data fields for things like Available Places which could be used to indicate if the Home Child Care is a nanny and if they are currently looking for work.
Other database systems exist to help parents find nannies. One of the most popular currently seems to me to be Childcare.co.uk and it is often a place I suggest parents use to advertise for a nanny if they are self recruiting a nanny rather than using a nanny agency. NannyJob.co.uk is another site which enables parents to advertise job vacancies aimed specifically at nannies.
The internet is increasingly being used by parents to find nannies, though my current job came via a nanny agency. Some parents will use agencies, some won’t so if you are a nanny looking for work, register with websites in your area that have nanny job listings.
November 2, 2011 at 6:40 pm
