Elite Seattle Nanny Agency Weighs in on Salaries
By Diane Duthweiler
(Seattle, June 27, 2012) — The six-figure New York nanny is a media star these days, but that nanny would be six-figureless in Seattle. “Nannies for this area’s wealthiest families top out around $70,000 a year and we do place them,” says Suzanne Royer-McCone, president of Annie’s Nannies, Incorporated, the Northwest’s longest-serving nanny agency. “The best pay is for a job we call, ‘family assistant’. They can make $25 to $30 an hour and do much more than childcare. They take care of the whole family ‒ whatever needs doing ‒ household organizing, running errands, meal prep, scheduling, dealing with schools, research, correspondence.”
“If you are a flexible, go-getter with a college degree, childcare experience, and some practical and home-making skills, you are more likely to get a high-paying family assistant job than a person with many years of nanny experience,” says Royer-McCone. “If you are a young man with those qualifications, it’s even easier for us to find you a top-tier job because we don’t have many men applying. The parents we deal with value someone who is educated ‒ someone like them, who is on track to be a future leader or high earner.”
The Annie’s Nannies’ clients who pay at the top end of the scale generally have two executives or high-end tech people in the family. “Companies like Amazon are hiring right now and bringing new people to the area. We’ve seen downturns in demand and hourly pay in past recessions, but during this recession, the market for household help remained fairly strong and is now increasing again. Wages for household staff in this area are driven by demand.” Despite that Royer-McCone says, “We won’t see six-figure nannies in Seattle anytime soon. We just don’t have that kind of mentality. Most Seattle-area nannies make $37,000 to $45,000 a year‒and that’s with a 40 to 50 hour work week. ”
