Norland Nanny Careers Guide
Discover our early childhood training
Being a Norland Nanny or Norlander, as our professional graduates are known, is the perfect career if you are passionate about working with children and playing a pivotal role in their development and wellbeing.
As a Norland Nanny, you’ll nurture the growth of the children in your care, shaping their early years, witnessing their milestones, fostering their creativity, instilling life lessons and creating long-term relationships with families.
You’ll build one-to-one relationships with the children in your care and work closely with parents and families to create the optimal environment for each child to thrive.
You’ll enjoy a lifelong career as a highly sought-after professional graduate Norland Nanny, with access to your own dedicated employment agency, professional association and continuing professional development training.
What does being a Norland Nanny involve?
As a Norland Nanny, you’ll be caring for children in the family home. Each nanny role is different, depending on the needs of individual families and the children in your care.
The main duties of a Norland Nanny include:
- Working alongside parents and families to look after the children in your care, supporting their optimal growth, development and learning.
- Recognising the central role played by parents and families in the lives of children, seeking and respecting their views and keeping them well informed.
- Planning, delivering and evaluating all care routines for the children in your care, including hygiene, weaning, sleep routines, transitions and self-regulation.
- Planning, delivering and evaluating all play, learning and educational activities both inside and outside the home.
- Responding to the changing needs and preferences of each child as they grow, develop and learn.
- Identifying the interests of each child to support their learning and development.
- Maintaining a healthy, clean and safe environment for the children in your care both inside and outside of the home.
- Working alongside healthcare professionals and/or other childcare practitioners to support the children in your care.
What qualities do I need to be a Norland Nanny?
- A loving and caring attitude – wanting to be involved in a child’s life and routine is crucial to being a nanny, as this will be your daily routine.
- Communication – you’ll spend a lot of time each day communicating with children, and then communicating their needs to their parents, carers, family, and healthcare and childcare practitioners so you’ll need to be a good communicator and able to adapt your communication style.
- Creativity / Innovation – you’ll need to be a creative problem solver as things can change at the last minute. For example, if you’ve planned an activity outdoors and it’s terrible weather, you’ll have to come up with something else – like moving an outdoors picnic to a teddy bear’s picnic indoors instead.
- Organisation / Time management – you must come to each day with activities prepared, as well as making the most of nap time to plan and cook nutritious meals in a timely way, and take a break for yourself to recharge your own batteries – all whilst prioritising the care and wellbeing of the children!
- Reflectiveness – learning from your experiences, both mistakes and successes, is crucial so you can apply those lessons and develop as a professional. It could be learning what worked with a different child of a similar age, or getting to know the child you’re working with and figuring out their likes, dislikes and emotional patterns.
- Resilience / Staying positive – working with children, things don’t always go to plan, and it’s essential to be able to learn from challenges or different situations and try not to be too critical of yourself. Your attitude will also support children to be resilient too, a critical life skill.
How do I become a Norland Nanny?
To become a Norland Nanny you must complete our two distinct and fully integrated qualifications which are unique to Norland: our BA (Hons) in Early Childhood Education and Care degree and the prestigious Norland diploma.
As a national centre of excellence, our gold-standard training blends academic theory with practice to ensure you graduate fully qualified with extensive early years knowledge, practical skills and a wealth of hands-on experience.
Over a third of your time at Norland will be spent gaining practical experience on placement (1,265 hours) in a minimum of eight different early years settings including a 25-hour newborn experience.
On completion of the degree and placements, you’ll gain industry-recognised Early Childhood Graduate Practitioner Competencies (ECGPC) status in both early childhood academic knowledge and practice skills.
In your fourth and final year, you’ll spend 12 months as a Newly Qualified Nanny, in paid full-time employment. The NQN year is the fourth and final year of training, that comprises of a year in paid employment that is supported, and assessed by Norland. The NQN team help you find your role, and are there to support throughout the year, in order to complete the Norland diploma and earn the prestigious professional title Norlander or Norland Nanny, as our highly respected graduates are known.
What do I need to become a Norland Nanny?
BA (Hons) in Early Childhood Education and Care
Our BA (Hons) Early Childhood Education and Care undergraduate degree and Norland diploma modules enable you to apply early years theory to practice and build your confidence through a wealth of hands-on experience in a range of early years settings.
Explore our degree and diploma modulesNorland Diploma
Fully integrated with our degree, our diploma training will prepare you for all the practical aspects of the care and development of babies and young children. You'll learn how to apply theory to practice alongside critical professional and life skills, such as professional communications, cooking skills and sewing.
Learn about the diploma coursePlacements
Experience the real world with hands-on placements with families and at hospitals, schools and nurseries. You will spend around 35% of your time (34 weeks) gaining experience in a wide range of settings – a minimum of 8 placements over the 3 years.
Explore our varied placement programmeNewly Qualified Nanny year
In your fourth and final year of training, you will work full-time with a family as a Newly Qualified Nanny (NQN) in paid employment, supported by a dedicated team of Norland Nannies. There are no tuition fees payable for this year.
Learn more about our NQN yearJourney to become a Norland Nanny
Once you have successfully applied, met our entry requirements and interviewed, you will be offered a place to study at Norland.
Successfully complete 3 years studying our BA Hons Degree in Early Childhood Education and Care and Norland Diploma.
Spend 34 weeks on placement in a minimum of 8 different settings including nurseries, schools, hospital wards, specialist schools and with families.
Finish your third year at Norland by completing your final year degree modules and work-based project to graduate from your degree.
Complete the final diploma module, the NQN year, as a Newly Qualified Nanny in paid full-time employment with a family, supported by our dedicated NQN team.
Graduate from the Norland Diploma and gain the professional title of Norland Nanny or Norlander.
Securing your place at Norland
Interested in the first step to becoming a Norland Nanny, applying to Norland? Find out more about the application process in our Norland Unwrapped: Applying, funding and accommodation webinar.
Do I need work experience to become a Norland Nanny?
Before coming to Norland to train as a Norland Nanny, we expect applicants to have some experience of caring for or working with children such as babysitting, nannying, volunteering in a school, nursery, or youth organisation, or helping to care for younger relatives.
You’ll gain extensive hands-on experience throughout your training, spending 34 weeks on placement in a wide range of early years settings.
Once you have successfully completed three years of degree and diploma training at Norland, you will complete a fourth year as a Newly Qualified Nanny in paid employment with a family to earn the prestigious diploma and professional Norland Nanny title.
My favourite thing about Norland are the placements. We have so many different opportunities throughout our training – early years settings like nurseries and schools, in the family home and even a hospital placement. Every placement is unique and allows us to put all our hard work to use.Ayeisha, Set 45 Student Read Ayeisha's story
What's the difference between a nanny and a Norland Nanny?
Norland Nannies have completed the highest level of nanny training, which is only available at Norland, and are considered to be the best early years practitioners in the world. Only qualified Norlanders can work through our in-house agency, the Norland Agency, to access their pick of jobs and the highest graduate salaries.
Norland Nannies are autonomous, unsupervised, trustworthy, well-educated, intuitive, professional, highly skilled graduates who work in a family home to care for and educate children, whilst providing fundamental support, advice and guidance for the whole family, drawing on cutting edge research in pursuit of excellence. Research on home-based
childcare has highlighted how nannies become a support system for parents beyond the caring of children.
The role of a Norland Nanny is a far more responsible job than that of a typical early years practitioner who works as part of a team or under supervision. Norland Nannies are classified as highly skilled professionals under the International Labour Office’s International Standard Classification of Occupations, which distinguishes between occupational groups responsible for the care of pre-school children. It singles out one set of individuals that promote the development of children below primary school age and are likely to have tertiary qualifications in education and early childhood development. The standard description of this group exactly fits the graduate Norland Nanny and is identified in the same major group as university and higher education teachers and primary school teachers.
What are the diferent types of Norland Nanny roles?
Frequently asked questions about nannying
The working schedule for a Norland Nanny varies from role to role.
Live-out nannies tend to work 50 hours per week, usually 10 hours per day five days per week, whereas live-in nannies usually work 60 hours per week, so 12-hour days.
- A live-in Norland Nanny generally works up to 12 hours per day and accommodation is provided by the family
- A live-out Norland Nanny generally works 10 hours a day and travels to and from the home each day
Many Norland Nannies work Monday to Friday, and the Norland Agency agency recommends they have two consecutive days off per week.
Although a traditional ‘full-time’ nanny role does have long hours, there are many options and nannying can often offer flexible arrangements. It is possible to work part-time, for example 4 days per week, or as a rota nanny working one week on, one week off, or temporary roles that allow you to have periods of not working in between roles.
After you graduate as a Norland Nanny, you will have access to our in-house agency, the Norland Agency. There are not many professions which can offer guaranteed employment opportunities but, at the Norland Agency, demand for Norland Nannies has outstripped supply from day one and continues to do so today. You’ll have access to the agency’s job list and support with the process of getting a job, including contracts, criminal record checks (DBS) and verifying families.
How much you make as a Norland Nanny depends on different factors including location, responsibilities, hours and expectations. Norland Nannies can command very high salaries, depending on the role, their experience and any additional skills. At Norland, we believe that highly skilled childcare professionals should receive a fair pay given the responsibilities of the role, their expert knowledge and specialist skillset.
Norland Nannying offers a flexible and varied career working with children. Part-time, temporary, maternity and rota nanny roles can work around other commitments, voluntary work, further study or caring for a family of your own. Many Norlanders who pursue other careers will return to nannying at different points in their lives.
In addition to nannying, there are a wide range of career options available to Norlanders. With their specialist degree and diploma training behind them, many Norlanders have gone on to pursue successful careers in education, healthcare, academia, consultancy and in leadership roles.
Find out about the different early years careers that Norland Nannies have pursued on our 130 career pathways page.
Career pathways from nannying
Nursery Owner
Julia shares her experience of establishing her own nursery, an Ofsted Outstanding nursery setting.
Read Julia's story
Breastfeeding Counsellor
Louisa shares her journey as a Postnatal Doula and Breastfeeding Counsellor, after her career as a nanny.
Read Louisa's story
PhD in developmental psychology
Maihri describes how Norland transformed her confidence in her academic abilities and led her to pursue research.
Read Mhairi's story
Head of Startwell: Strategic lead for early years
Helen shares her varied career pathway through education and the early years, as well as her current role as Strategic Lead.
Read Helen's storyRegister your interest in studying at Norland to stay connected
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