SHE is no longer “just a nanny”, she is a highly qualified professional childcarer. And now she has salary expectations to match.

A growing acceptance of childcare as a respectable profession, requiring rigorous training and vetting, has helped to push up the salaries of nannies in London to a record £28,181, outstripping the starting pay of newly qualified nurses (£18,000) and teachers (£24,000).

The annual increase for daily nannies in Central London was 4 per cent last year, nearly twice the rate of inflation, producing an average take-home pay of £399 a week. Live-in nannies in London saw the biggest rise because of a shortage of qualified people prepared to share their employer’s home. Last year their pay rose by 7.5 per cent to £21,573 a year. Live-in nannies in rural areas enjoyed a 7 per cent rise to £16,910, according to the latest annual nanny pay survey by the magazine Nursery World.

Nanny salaries have long been seen as an unofficial indicator of the state of the economy, and the latest findings suggest the existence of a “nanny bounce” last year. This came after widespread redundancies in 2004 in the financial services and information technology sectors, which in turn led to redundancies and pay cuts for many nannies.

The survey found not only that nanny pay had risen throughout the country, but also that more families were now choosing to employ one.

In the home counties the average pay last year was £18,776 (up 4 per cent) for live-in nannies and £22,971 (up 2 per cent) for daily nannies. In metropolitan areas outside London, the average pay was £16,612 (up 5 per cent) for live-in nannies and £19,948 (up 3 per cent) for daily nannies.

Asa Nilsdotter, of Nannytax, the payroll service that conducted the survey of nanny agencies, said that the Government’s push for more and better childcare training — including the possibility of a £10,000 subsidy for every graduate recruited to work in nurseries, was rubbing off on nannies, most of whom are in their twenties. “Nannies are seeing themselves more and more as professionals. Last year we had our first professional Nanny of the Year award and we have petitioned Downing Street to regard nannies as professionals,” she said.

The survey also found anecdotal evidence that the Childcare Approval Scheme, introduced in April to offer tax breaks of up to £2,132 to working parents who employ nannies and who earn less than £59,000, is beginning to take off.

Nearly 40 per cent of parents using agencies last year inquired about the scheme and the childcare courses recognised for it are already oversubscribed. However, some agencies said that it was overcomplicated and most said that the benefits needed greater publicity.

Ms Nilsdotter said that over time the scheme, which requires nannies to be “approved” by an independent approvals body before parents can qualify for tax breaks, would help to push up nanny pay. “In a competitive job market approved nannies will have an advantage over unapproved nannies, and approved status may help them to negotiate a better salary, given the benefit of savings to their employer,” she said.

The survey also found that would-be nannies from the ten countries that recently joined the EU are not yet finding favour with many nanny agencies because of language difficulties and the problems of checking references. Nevertheless, some agencies are now predicting that the “new Europeans” will eventually replace the popular Australian, New Zealand and South African nannies, whose work visas now carry a 12-month time limit.

There has also been an increase in the use of part-time nannies as more families use a nanny, not instead of, but in addition to other forms of childcare, such as a nursery.

Andrew Myers, managing director of Nannytax, said that, although expensive, nannies remained a popular choice because the majority of working parents still had difficulty finding flexible childcare.

Kizzi Burton, of Annie’s Nannies, a London-based agency, said that she was struggling to find good nannies to fill live-in positions. “Most girls prefer to live out, even though the salaries for live-in positions are nearly as good as daily salaries. Nannies prefer the independence that comes with a daily position,” she said.

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