Britain’s $170k Nannies Who American Parents Can’t Seem to Get Enough

When Roxanne tells people she’s studying to be a nanny, people often ask her, “How can you make that something sustainable?” she told Business Insider’s Robert Leslie. However, Roxanne, from New Orleans, isn’t studying to be just any nanny.

Indeed, nannies in the US earn, on average, $49,000 a year, according to ZipRecruiter. Norland Nannies, however, earn significantly more.

Norland College in Bath, England is a 133-year-old institution that trains elite nannies for some of the world’s wealthiest families, including the British royal family and Mick Jagger’s family.

Graduates earn about $75,000 straight out of Norland College and up to $170,000 after a decade of experience — roughly triple the US average — according to school records.

In addition to royals and rock stars, Norland Nannies are increasingly being sought after by wealthy American parents willing to spend over $100,000 a year for expert childcare.

“We know, for example, in New York alone, we had nearly 100 jobs in the past few years. But we weren’t able to fulfill those jobs,” said Norland College Principal Janet Rose.

Roxanne is among a recent batch of new American trainees that the school hopes will fill that demand.

Why pay over $100,000 for a Norland Nannie?

The appeal of Norland Nannies goes beyond its long-standing prestige. Norland students have multiple years of training in self-defense, cooking, skidpan driving, neuroscience, child psychology, and cyber safety.

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They can make homemade sushi and chocolate eclairs, mend a torn shirt, pull a car out of a spin, and fend off an attacker (not all at once).

“We always get the jokes about James Bond meeting Mary Poppins,” Rose said, adding, “But it’s not about that all. We’re not trying to turn them into bodyguards.” Instead, the nannies are trained to protect the children in their care in low- and high-stakes situations.

For example, a college alum, Alice, told BI of a time a man tried to take a child in her care. “I said, ‘You need to give her back,’ and he said no. And so I just had to pull her off him whilst holding onto the buggy where her baby brother was.”

“It’s scary, but I think that’s why parents hire Norlanders: because we are given that extensive training for these worst-case scenarios,” Alice said.

Roxanne, a second-year student at the time of filming in June, said that in America, “culturally, it’s always been ‘go into STEM — engineering, medicine, architecture.’ And obviously, when I said I wanted to be a nanny, it was like, ‘What?'”

“But that’s why I think Norland is so transformative — they’ve taken this concept of what used to be ‘the help’ and turned it into an expertise,” she added.

America’s new Norland Nannies

Part of the roadblock in filling the recent growing American demand was the lack of American students, Rose said. Different families have different cultures and needs. “So we want to make sure that we generate graduates that can work with those families,” Rose added.

In 2021, however, Norland secured a license to enroll international students, enabling Americans like Roxanne, Frankie, and Emma to join. The first class of American students is scheduled to graduate in 2026.

“I did a school year abroad in Italy when I was 15,” said Frankie, who is from North Carolina and was a first-year at the time of filming in May. “When I came back, I was absolutely certain I was never going to go abroad for school again. But when I found Norland, it just clicked in all the ways that none of the US universities did.”

It’s a four-year program: the first three years involve studying toward a degree in Early Childhood Education, and the final year earns them a Norland Diploma after completing a 12-month placement with a family.

Tuition for international students is about $27,000 a year, which is comparable to some US out-of-state tuition fees. However, the benefit is that graduates are guaranteed employment through Norland’s in-house agency, which matches them with clients worldwide.

Still, getting in is highly competitive. Norland admits only about 100 students each year, Vice Principal Rebecca Digby said. “It’s intensive,” she said, adding that, “One of the core qualities we look for is resilience.”

Emma, from Utah, said she was concerned about joining the school at first. “I was worried that the course was going to be too difficult for me, that I wasn’t going to fit in, that I maybe, you know, wasn’t the type of person that would thrive here.”

As a final year student at the time of filming, Emma said her confidence in herself and her abilities has grown during her years at Norland.

“I feel like I’ve really been able to learn what to do in an emergency. I feel more confident, you know, going into a big city like London and being able to feel more safe than I would previously and be able to kind of know what to look out for.”