The average annual salary is now 15,172 compared with 11,594 in 1999, a rise of 31 per cent. The annual salary for a nursery manager is Pounds 17,485.
The survey found a growing gap between pay in the public and private sectors. A nursery nurse in the maintained sector can expect to earn 14,353 a year, while her counterpart in the private sector earns an average Pounds 10,698.
Three-quarters of staff in private settings earn below 12,500, while more than four in five local authority nursery nurses earn more than this.
Staff working for Government initiatives such as Sure Start and Children's Centres appear to have benefited the most, with average salaries of Pounds 19,264.
More than half of the 16- to 21- year-olds who took part in the survey are keen to increase their qualifications. And despite low pay, the majority of childcare and early years professionals said they were happy in their jobs.
* For full details of the pay survey see the pullout in this week's Nursery World.