London domestic staff salary report · 2026
London domestic staff salary and rates report.
A source-led comparison of current London pay benchmarks for nannies, housekeepers, nanny-housekeepers, maternity nurses, mother's help and cleaners. The figures are role-based market evidence, not a nationality-specific rate and not Filipino Domestic Services placement data.
Quick answer
What are domestic staff being paid in London in 2026?
There is no single London domestic-staff rate. In the most directly comparable payroll dataset used in this report, Nannytax reports an average £21.63 gross per hour for an Inner London live-out nanny and £16.43 gross per hour for a London live-in nanny. Other domestic roles are published mainly as recruitment-guide ranges or current vacancy rates rather than one audited payroll average.
This report therefore keeps each source in its own lane. It shows what the source measured, the arrangement it covers and where the evidence is too different to combine responsibly.
2026 benchmark table
Headline London salary and rate benchmarks by role.
All figures below are gross unless the source says otherwise. A benchmark is not a quote and does not include Filipino Domestic Services agency charges or the household's employer on-costs.
Sources are named and linked in the methodology and source register below. The table deliberately does not collapse different source types into a synthetic “average domestic staff salary”.
Methodology
How this 2026 report was compiled.
This edition is an independent public-market benchmark compiled by Filipino Domestic Services. It does not present Filipino Domestic Services placement salaries as a proprietary dataset.
Nanny market
Nanny pay has the clearest year-on-year evidence.
Nannytax's 2026 salary guide is based on its payroll records and says the current Inner London live-out average is £21.63 gross per hour, equivalent to £56,238 gross per year for its 50-hour full-time model. Its London live-in benchmark is £16.43 gross per hour.
For year-on-year movement, Nannytax reports Inner London live-out annual pay up 10.9% from the previous tax year. It also reports an Outer London hourly figure of £21.73; its widely quoted £22.64 figure combines Outer London with the Home Counties, so this report does not relabel that combined figure as London-only.
Nannytax 2026 salary guide
Housekeeper market
Housekeeper benchmarks change sharply with the segment being measured.
Little Ones publishes a London guide of £16 to £20 gross per hour for full-time and part-time live-out housekeepers and £600 to £900 gross per week for live-in housekeepers.
A specialist private-household lens is higher. 19 London publishes a 2026 benchmark of £45,000 to £55,000 gross per year for both live-in and live-out London housekeepers, rising to £55,000 to £70,000 for head-housekeeper roles. Current specialist vacancies also show experienced private-household positions around the mid-£40,000s to £50,000s.
These sources should not be averaged together. They describe different slices of the market, which is exactly why a household needs to define the property, duties, seniority and schedule before deciding what range is relevant.
housekeeper costs in fullCombined and temporary roles
Nanny-housekeeper and maternity-nurse rates need a different reading.
£16 to £20/hour live-out; £500 to £800/week live-in in the Little Ones London guide.
A combined title does not make childcare and housekeeping simultaneous. Candidate expectations change with the genuine responsibility split, children's ages, hours, cooking, travel and whether the role is live-in. A current 2026 Eden Private Staff live-in housekeeper-nanny vacancy in SW19 advertised £50,000 to £55,000 gross per year, illustrating how a more experienced private-household role can sit above a broad guide.
£300 to £450 per 24 hours, or £20 to £25/hour for day or night bookings.
Maternity work is normally temporary and may be priced by 24-hour booking or shift rather than annual salary. As a live-market cross-check, an Eden Private Staff maternity-nurse vacancy in Dalston in August 2026 advertised £320 to £400 gross per 24 hours.
Mother's help
Mother's-help evidence is better treated as live vacancy evidence than as an invented average.
We did not find a comparable London payroll series for mother's-help roles. Instead, this report records two current London vacancy examples: a Hampstead mother's-help/PA role at £16 to £19 gross per hour, and a Hackney morning nanny/mother's-help role at £19 to £22 gross per hour.
The resulting £16 to £22 observed span is not labelled a London average. Both jobs have their own hours, childcare responsibilities and practical duties, so the correct salary discussion still starts with the actual role.
Cleaner and companion boundaries
Do not confuse cleaner pay, cleaning-service prices and regulated care wages.
Indeed reports a broad London cleaner average of £14.01 per hour, based on thousands of reported salaries and updated in July 2026. That figure is employee pay across the wider cleaner market. It is not the retail hourly price charged by a cleaning company and it is not a Filipino Domestic Services service rate.
For non-clinical companion support, this report does not publish a numeric band. Public “care worker” and “caregiver” datasets commonly include regulated or personal-care work, which is not equivalent to the non-clinical companionship scope Filipino Domestic Services describes. Publishing those figures as if they were directly comparable would create a false benchmark.
Year-on-year movement
Where can we responsibly say salaries moved?
Only the nanny dataset in this edition provides a directly comparable current year-on-year series that we are prepared to publish as a percentage.
Live-in does not mean “salary minus the market rent for a room”.
Live-in roles need a private accommodation arrangement, defined working hours and genuine off-duty time. For minimum-wage calculations, employer-provided accommodation is governed by the statutory accommodation-offset rules rather than the market rental value of the room.
From April 2026, the National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over is £12.71 per hour. The accommodation offset is £11.10 per day or £77.70 per week. Those figures are statutory floors and calculation rules, not target salaries for experienced London domestic staff.
Salary is not total cost
A gross salary benchmark is only the employment starting point.
Where the household directly employs the candidate, the budget can also include employer National Insurance, workplace-pension contributions where applicable, payroll administration, Employers' Liability insurance, agreed work expenses and paid statutory entitlements.
This report does not duplicate the tax calculations owned by the nanny-tax guide. It also keeps Filipino Domestic Services agency charges separate from market salary evidence.
How Filipino Domestic Services uses the data
We scope the job before deciding which salary evidence is relevant.
The Filipino Domestic Services client terms require the household to provide the type of work and period of engagement before candidate introductions. That operating sequence matters when salary data comes from sources with different assumptions.
For a staffing enquiry, we start with the actual duties, normal hours, postcode, live-in or live-out arrangement and intended duration. We then use the closest market evidence as context rather than forcing every role into one generic rate. This is why a £16 to £20 recruitment-guide housekeeper range and a £45,000 to £55,000 specialist private-household salary guide can both be informative without being treated as the same dataset.
We also keep salary, employer on-costs and agency fees as separate decisions. That makes it easier for a household to compare like with like and for a candidate to understand the gross pay attached to the real job.
For this edition, that meant refusing to create one blended “London domestic staff average”. A nanny payroll average, a private-household housekeeper guide, a current maternity-nurse vacancy and a broad cleaner salary benchmark answer different questions. We label those source types separately so the household can see which evidence actually matches the role it is budgeting for.
Read the current client termsEvidence register
Sources used in the August 2026 edition.
Public sources can change. The evidence date is recorded so a future refresh can compare the same source where possible rather than silently mixing old and new definitions.
Questions
London domestic staff salary questions.
How much does a nanny earn in London in 2026?
Nannytax's 2026 payroll data reports £21.63 gross per hour for an Inner London live-out nanny and £56,238 gross a year using its 50-hour full-time model. Its London live-in benchmark is £16.43 gross per hour. Actual pay still depends on duties, experience, qualifications and schedule.
What is a typical London housekeeper salary?
The answer depends on the market segment. Little Ones publishes £16 to £20 gross per hour for live-out London housekeepers and £600 to £900 gross per week for live-in roles. 19 London's specialist private-household guide publishes £45,000 to £55,000 gross per year for live-in and live-out housekeepers. These sources should be read separately, not averaged.
How much does a nanny-housekeeper earn in London?
Little Ones publishes £16 to £20 gross per hour for live-out nanny-housekeepers and £500 to £800 gross per week for live-in roles. More experienced private-household jobs can sit higher, particularly where the role has long hours, complex duties, travel or high childcare responsibility.
How much does a maternity nurse cost in London?
Little Ones publishes £300 to £450 gross per 24 hours for maternity nurses and £20 to £25 gross per hour for day or night work. A current August 2026 Eden Private Staff London vacancy advertised £320 to £400 gross per 24 hours. Booking length, experience and the working pattern affect the final rate.
Are Filipino domestic staff paid a different rate?
This report does not use a nationality-specific pay scale. Market evidence is organised by the role, duties, hours, experience, location and live-in or live-out arrangement. Filipino Domestic Services uses the household brief to identify the relevant role and salary context.
Does the salary include the agency fee and employer costs?
No. Gross salary or gross hourly pay is separate from Filipino Domestic Services agency charges and from employer costs such as employer National Insurance, workplace pension contributions where applicable, payroll administration and insurance.
Set the role first, then set a realistic gross-pay range.
Tell Filipino Domestic Services the duties, postcode, hours, working arrangement and start date. We can use that brief to keep the salary discussion anchored to the right role rather than a generic domestic-staff number.