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Childcare averages £8.60 an hour in London

Cherry Reynard
Written By:
Cherry Reynard
Posted:
Updated:
03/01/2019

Childcare costs across the country can vary by as much as £2.30 per hour, with London the most expensive and the East Midlands the cheapest.

Parents in London pay an average of £8.60 per hour. However, a new cost calculator from Childcare.co.uk shows that there is significant variation even within London. In Hammersmith & Fulham, for example, a childminder will cost £8.63 on average, compared to £6.80 across the whole of London. However, nurseries are cheaper in this part of London than elsewhere.

London is most expensive across all forms of childcare – childminders, babysitters, nannies and day nurseries. However, other areas vary Yorkshire and The Humber is the cheapest for childminding, the North East is the cheapest for nannies and babysitters and the East Midlands is the cheapest for nurseries.

Parents can find the average childcare cost is in their area here

The most expensive UK regions based on average hourly rate for childcare are as follows:

  1. London – £8.60
  2. South East – £7.75
  3. Scotland – £6.88
  4. North West – £6.84
  5. South West – £6.71
  6. West Midlands – £6.60
  7. Yorkshire and The Humber – £6.54
  8. Wales – £6.53
  9. North East – £6.38
  10. East Midlands – £6.33

Nurseries are the cheapest form of childcare, costing an average of £4.95 an hour – £6.47 in London and £6.33 in the East Midlands. Childminders cost a little more, at an average of £5.45. However, nannies cost more than double the price of a nursery at £10.43 per hour, rising to £11.11 in London.

Richard Conway, founder of Childcare.co.uk said: “It’s always interesting to find out which areas of the UK are the most expensive when it comes to childcare services. It’s no surprise that London topped the list as the most expensive region across all sectors. However, price depends on the professional, so it will never be something the industry has a standard pricing structure on, which is why I think it’s useful to see the average of other childcare professionals.”