Should I ask for a gross or net pay amount
Historically nannies used to be paid 'cash in hand' and as such agreed with their employer's how much they would get to keep (net pay). As times have gone on, nannies have become savvy to the fact that legally they are eligible for the same rights and entitlements as every other employee in the country (holiday pay, sick pay, pension, maternity/paternity/adoption pay etc).
With this in mind employers started declaring their nannies pay correctly, however, many continued on this net pay agreement that they had been used to for so long.
The times have since changed and nannies understand the system and the way it works and many now will only work in gross pay figures.
When you agree a gross salary it means that your employer will deduct the tax and NI (and student loan, CCJ's and pension if you have them) from it and you will receive the rest. This means that if you have a gap between jobs and do not work, you will get less tax deducted once your P45 is given to your new employer and you will get a higher take home pay. It also helps when you apply for a mortgage as your pay is the same each month (on a net agreement your gross pay could dip down if you had a tax rebate, as your employer would get the benefit of this not you).
If you are used to having a net pay amount and want to switch to gross but you just don't know how much to ask for you can either, look at your current payslip and use that gross amount or enter your net pay into our tax calculator and it will give you the gross rate (assuming you only have one employer). You can then divide this gross rate by the number of hours that you work each week to get your hourly gross rate.
If you have a monthly payslip and want to get the gross hourly rate you need to use the following calculation:
Gross Monthly Pay X 12 / 52 / number of hours per week you work = Hourly Gross Rate.
Most professional nannies will now only deal in gross pay amounts, this means that they get the benefit of any government changes to tax allowance (such as the annual tax allowance increase) as well.