References & Pay Tiers

Pay that recognises your experience.

How our pay works

To qualify for a pay tier we need to reference your experience.

We will contact two references and ask them about you and your experience. It’s important if you’re applying for a higher pay tier that these reference cover the years of experience you need to qualify for that tier. 

You don’t need to provide pre-written letters or testimonials from your references – we’ll do the work for you

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Less than 1 year of experience (£10.25-12.55/hour)

For those who’re new to working with children. Your starting rate depends on your age.

1+ year of experience or parental experience (£12.75-13/hour)

For those who’ve worked with children for at least 1 year, or who’ve had their own children for 3+ years.

2+ years of experience (£13-13.45/hour)

If you’ve worked with children for 2+ years, this is the tier for you.

3+ years of experience (£13.50-13.95/hour)

This is only for those who’ve worked as nannies or Ofsted registered childminders.

Frequently asked questions

We will ask you to provide the contact details of at least two references, and we will get in touch with them to ask them some questions. You don’t need to provide pre-written letters or testimonials from your references – we’ll do the work for you!
Firstly, we’ll want to clarify important details – like dates of employment or how long they have known you. Then we’ll ask more about your character, skills and attitudes. We know your references are busy people so it shouldn’t take them any more than about 5 minutes to give you a reference.

This depends on your experience and the pay rate that you are eligible for. Most of our nannies provide our standard references. For these you don’t need a professional reference that has seen you around children. Some applicants may be eligible to provide references to show their parental or professional experience and these require slightly different references.

You’ll need to provide two references. At least one of them should know you and your parenting skills well, and should have seen you around you children or grandchildren. If you haven’t been in professional employment or education for a while, you are welcome to provide two personal references that know you and your parenting skills really well.
Depending on the pay rate that you are eligible to start on, we will need to validate different lengths of your experience. You’ll need to provide the contact details of your former employers (up to 4) who can confirm the role and the dates that you’ve worked, and where possible, plenty of details about your skills and experience. If you only need to use one reference to demonstrate your professional experience, then you can provide a final, more personal reference or one from a role unrelated to childcare. These can be school years if your experience was in a school.

We do need to validate at least one year of professional experience to place you on a higher rate of pay. If you aren’t eligible for a higher rate of pay, you should submit for our standard or parental references.

We do need to validate at least one year of professional experience to place you on a higher rate of pay. If you aren’t eligible for a higher rate of pay, you should submit for our standard or parental references.

Please get in touch with us at care@korukids.co.uk to explain a bit more about your situation, as we may still be able to accept it.

No – a referee cannot be a family member, partner or current Koru Kids nanny or applicant. If we receive any false or invalid references this will lead to your application being rejected.
We strongly recommend this otherwise it can slow down the reference process. However if you only have one, just submit this. Where possible, this should be a professional email address from a workplace, school or university, even if you know the person in a personal capacity. e.g. romilly@korukids.co.uk is better than romilly@gmail.com.
This shouldn’t be a problem. We can call anywhere in the world! We’ve even managed the time difference with New Zealand before! You can let us know what time zone they live in when you submit your references.

Due to our amazing multi-lingual team, we can do references in 8 other languages and counting! We can do references in Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian and Norwegian. Please note that completing references in English will be faster, however you can let us know any language requirements when you submit your references.

Please go ahead and submit this reference. We understand that some companies won’t provide very detailed references, but they may be crucial in validating your professional experience. We would prefer, where possible, that we can speak to at least one reference that knows you well personally too.

You’ll need their full name, email address (professional/work email preferred) and their phone number. You can also note any language requirements or if we will need to call internationally. We’ll also ask you how long you’ve worked with or know your references, and the age of the children that your reference has seen you around (where relevant).

Most of our families have primary school aged children (4-11) and that’s what most of our nannies are comfortable looking after. However, we do have some families with younger children, toddler and babies. They might be looking for a nanny to do a nursery pick-up. If you are confident and have experience looking after younger children, and would enjoy a role like this, we will want to ask your reference about specific relevant skills such as feeding, nappies and potty training. When you submit your references we’ll ask if you want us to ask any of your references these extra questions. If we are able to confirm your experience with younger children, we will be able to put you forward for these roles.