Childcare providers’ hourly costs have risen more than can be explained by inflation, rises to the minimum and national living wage, and pension contribution changes.
The findings come from a 118-page report published by Frontier Economics and commissioned by the Department for Education, which surveyed in detail the costs of 120 early years settings between March and July 2018.
The Early years providers cost study 2018 involved in-depth interviews with a randomly selected sample of providers, balanced against provider types and each region in order to ensure sufficient sample sizes for each region and type of provider.
It shows a snapshot of a typical week, with most of the data collected during the summer term when occupancy is typically at its highest and, consequently, total income is at its highest and hourly delivery cost is at its lowest.
A total of 278 providers were approached to take part in the study and the final sample was 120 settings who provided complete data.
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