While has pay has edged upwards for UK nannies, the financial rewards have not been sufficient to keep many in the job.
In the tax year to the end of April 2022, Nannytax found that UK nannies earned an average gross salary of £32,552, or £12.52 per hour, rising to £39,806, or £15.31 per hour, in London.
Health was also a a factor when it came to leaving the nanny sector. Almost a fifth (19 per cent) of those who had thought about leaving considered finding a ‘safer’ role that did not involve working with children, due to the risk of Covid-19.
Fewer than one in ten (9 per cent) said their motivation to leave the profession was due to difficult relationships with employers, while only six per cent said it was because they did not enjoy the work. Just 3 per cent cited issues with the children they worked with.
However, of the 59 per cent of nannies who have not considered a career change in the past two years, close to a quarter (22 per cent) said they had considered finding a new family to work with.
Kirsty Wild, a nanny employment expert at Nannytax, said, ‘Given that 13 per cent of all nannies are thinking about switching families, and there are stories of desperate parents recruiting at the school gates with higher salaries and juicy starter perks, nanny employers need to be thinking about retention strategies.
‘In the past year, 26 per cent of nannies haven’t received any additional perks or rewards on top of their pay, and only three per cent have had training opportunities, so this might be an area to look at, if increasing pay is not an option.
‘The acute shortage of nannies is being partly driven by Brexit, which has seen new visa laws introduced, making it difficult, even impossible, to grant nannies and au pairs from overseas an opportunity to work here.
‘And demand is very strong. The pandemic has seen families relocate and, while an exodus to the countryside might be idyllic, there isn’t always the convenience of a nursery close by. In such cases, hiring a nanny may simply be the most reasonable option.
‘Families are also realising there are cost-saving benefits for families with more than one child when weighed up against nursery fees, and in nanny share arrangements with other families.’
