Printable View
Hi can anyone help me, I am really thinking of becoming a childminder as I love working with children and have done this for 7 years. The only thing holding me back is worrying about how much I would earn. I live in Tamworth, Staffordshire and wondered if anyone could advise me and help me get a rough idea on how much I could earn as a full time childminder. Thankyou in advance :)
Hi, there are some special threads to guide you too which I'm sure someone will be along to do in a moment.
My advice is pretend you are looking for a childminder for a child now in your area, what would you look for and where would you look? Go and search and find out what's available, how much people charge in your area and see how many childminders there are with vacancies to see what the market is like at the moment.
Good luck, it really is a wonderful vocation :)
Good idea thankyou :)
It varies all over the country due to demand and rates charged. If you are lucky you are in an area with very high demand and your places could be full straight away or it could take months I am afraid.
You need to contact your local FIS (Family Information Service) at your council and they will advice you how to become a childminder. It can take anything from 3 - 12 months to register depending on your area.
Being self-employed can be very fulfilling there are loads of us doing it all over but it is not secure and your area may have quiet times so you have to prepare for them. Many years ago I went from full to one child just a few hours a week in a month due to parents redundancy and another finishing college and deciding not to work so I went to work in a pub in the evenings until more enquiries came in.
As for what you will earn it is so variable- once you know the hourly rate in your area you need to may be work out 'best-case' and 'worst-case' scenarios:
How many children can you care for- do you have any of your own? These need to be counted in your numbers. EYFS outlines how many children you can care for, and you need to check you have enough space too.
How many days do you want to work for? Many CMs work 3- or 4-days a week to balance with family/personal demands, but likewise many do work 5-days a week and you can work weekends and evenings/overnight too if you want and if you can find the work.
What will your working hours be? 8am start? 7.30am start 6am? There might be demand for early starts- are you willing to do it? and finishing 5pm, 6pm or later, overnight?
So best case would be if you were full to capacity (depending on how busy you want to be- do you want a house-full after school and in the holidays?! Some do, I don't!), you might be lucky and achieve this after a few months of working for some of your days, but it is unlikely you will achieve this on every working day all year- it is very up and down.
'Worst-case' is the one you need to be prepared for as it happens to us all sometimes- the first 6mths can be tough finding your first clients- you may have zero income + expenditures (insurance, professional body membership, Ofsted fees etc etc). You might have siblings you care for and the parent loses their job and you lose a major part of your income. It can take months to fill a vacancy, especially if it is an odd pair of days a week you want to fill.
Another way to work out if it is financially viable is to decide what you would need to earn to make it possible for you in your circumstances, for example you might say it is not worth me doing for less than £12K profit per year. Then you could work backwards from that- allow for income tax and expenses and then work out how many hours x your local hourly rate you would have to work to earn what you need, divide by the number of days you want to work and from there you can see how many children you would need to bring in the income.
Hi and welcome,
Here is a thread regarding registering as a childminder
http://www.childmindinghelp.co.uk/fo...ildminder.html
In terms of how much you will earn varies immensely. If you have your own children they will be part of your numbers so will not be able to have as many paying children. You are self employed and as such can tailor your business how you wish. You could work every day, have 3 pre school children and 3 after schoolies and over 8's every day. You would earn a lot but might find it too much. To start with you may be light on numbers whist you find children or may not have any to start with so you have to think about that eventuality.
Good luck, it is a very worthwhile career :thumbsup:
Does anyone know if you have to do maths and English tests before registering to be a childminder.
No, you don't. Answered in your other post too. HTH xQuote:
Originally Posted by Amanda70
This has been really interesting. I have been toying with the idea for months and just decided to do it and now waiting for my pre reg and I'm excited now as most of my paperwork is done!!! Childminding is a good way to earn money in childcare though xxx
Hello I also live in Tamworth , if you don't mind me asking where abouts in tamworth are you . Ill love to be able to meet up with other childminders . Im just waiting on my pre reg . :)
no you dontQuote:
Originally Posted by Amanda70