FAST FACTS: Childcare and early childhood education
Provision and places
In England, in the private, voluntary and independent (PVI) sector there are estimated to be:
- 24,000 group based registered early years providers including nurseries and pre-schools;
- 14,700 are private sector providers
- 8,600 are voluntary sector providers
- 800 are run by other providers including local authorities and higher or further education providers.
Collectively, they provide 1.1 million registered early education and childcare places for children under 5.
- 755,000 places by private sector providers
- 297,700 places by voluntary sector providers
- 35,500 places by other providers including local authorities and higher or further education providers.
- 39,400 registered childminders providing 239,700 places
Maintained nursery, infant and primary schools also provide early education places for children before they start school, in the school year that they turn five. In England, there are:
- 9,100 school-based providers;
- 8,700 of which were school-based providers offering nursery classes in infant and primary schools.
- 400 of which were maintained stand-alone nursery schools.
Collectively, they provide 328,000 school based early education places for children aged 3 and 4.
- 291,500 places are provided in nursery classes in infant and primary schools.
- 36,500 are provided by maintained stand-alone nursery schools.
Is there enough provision?
- The availability of childcare varies substantially between different groups of children in England. Generally there is more childcare available for younger children. Fewer than a fifth (14%) of local authority areas have enough childcare available for children aged 12-14 and not quite a third (32%) have enough childcare for children aged 5-11 .
- Only around one half of local authority areas in England (56%) have enough childcare for parents working full time.
- Less than a fifth (18%) of local authority areas have enough childcare for parents working atypical hours or for disabled children (19%).
- Just under a quarter (24%) of local authority areas have enough childcare for families living in rural areas.
The workforce
There are an estimated 363,400 early years staff working in early education and childcare in England.
- 261,400 work in PVI settings
- 177,200 in private sector provision
- 74,700 in voluntary sector provision
- 9,500 in provision run by other providers.
There are an additional 47,900 childminders including 8,500 childminding assistants.
The majority of these workers are women, low paid and have little in the way of savings. Many also rely on state benefit top ups to make ends meet.
- 54,100 work in school based settings
- 46,700 in school based provision
- 7,400 in maintained nursery schools.
Childcare costs and the costs of providing childcare
- Childcare costs:
If you are a parent with children under three, childcare is very expensive.
- The average price of 50 hours childcare a week for a child under two in a nursery across Great Britain is £252, or £13,100 per year.
- The average price of 50 hours childcare a week for a child under two with a childminder across Great Britain is £233 or £12,116 per year.
Parents with the youngest children get very little help with any childcare costs from the government.
In England, if you are a parent with a three or four year old child, you are entitled to at least 15 hours a week and some working parents can claim up to 30 hours free early education and childcare. Even with this entitlement, parents are still paying an average of:
- £5,180 per year in England and more than £8,000 per year on average in London for a place in a nursery.
- £4,800 per year in England and more than £6,700 per year on average in London for a place with a childminder.
Costs of providing childcare
Despite the help that parents get from government towards early childhood education for three and four year olds, nurseries, pre-schools and childminders are not funded enough by government to cover the costs of providing this. There is an estimated £600m shortfall.
The highest proportion of costs for both the PVI and the maintained sectors who provider early education and childcare are employee related.
- For the PVI, almost three quarters (73%) of costs are staff related and include wages, National Insurance payments and pension contributions. In the private sector, these made up 71% of costs and in the voluntary sector, 77% of costs are attributable to staff.
- The majority of childminders are self-employed and based in their own homes. Their cost bases are therefore quite different. The highest reported financial outgoing for childminders is food costs (41%), which covers the costs of children’s meals, snacks and refreshments.
- For school based providers, more than three quarters (81%) of reported costs were attributed to staff costs.
Employment rates for parents in the UK
The number of mothers in the labour market has grown substantially over the last 20 years. In 2000 only two-thirds of mothers (66.2%) were in employment. Today, three in four mothers with dependent children (75.1%) are in work in the UK. This compares with 92.6% of fathers with dependent children.
The ways in which couple families structured their employment differ depending on the age of their child.
- In families whose youngest dependent child was under two 50 per cent had a father that worked full time and their partner part time, while 46 per cent had both parents in full time employment.
- Families whose youngest dependent child was aged between three and four years were most likely to have a father working full time while their partner worked part time (56.5%).
The way parents structured their employment differs depending on the number of dependent children in their family.
- More than half (55.1%) of families with one child had both parents working full-time.
- Where families have three or more dependent children, just of a third (36.3%) of parents both worked.
There are 1.8 million lone parent families with dependent children in the UK.
- The majority (69.9%) of lone parents were in employment.
- For children under 2, 35.4% were in full time employment.
- Almost half (49.6%) of lone parent families worked full time but as the number of dependent children in a lone parent family increased, the number of one parent families undertaking part-time employment increased.
References:
Ceeda (2019) Counting the cost in Spring 2019.
Coram Family and Childcare (2020). Childcare Survey 2020.