Cost of summer holiday childcare is rising four times faster than earnings, data shows

The cost of summer holiday childcare has risen four times faster than earnings, new data has shown.

Most schools broke up last week, leaving working parents to choose between summer camps, nannies or child minders to keep youngsters occupied over the long vacation. 

Since 2010, the cost of holiday childcare across the UK has risen by over 50 per cent, while the average salary has risen by just 13 per cent over the same period, according to a new analysis by the Labour Party. 

The weekly cost in the north east has risen by 111 per cent – from £63.05 in 2010 to £132.98 in 2017, making it the most expensive region in the country for holiday childcare. 

Data from The Family and Childcare Trust, which carries out an annual survey of the cost of holiday childcare in local authorities across the country, shows that the weekly cost in Wales has also had one of the biggest rises, from £58.89 in 2010 to £117.62 this year.  

Megan Jarvie, a spokesperson for the Family and Childcare Trust, said that the spiralling costs were in part caused by issues faced by all small businesses such as rises in minimum wage, business rates and rent.

“Demand is going up, there are more children and more working parents,” she said.

“Holiday childcare tends to be a pretty volatile market with different providers setting up from one year to the next, so we do often see bigger price changes than we do for year round childcare.”

Summer holiday childcare is under the same population pressures as schools, with the increase in numbers bolstered by a rising birth rate among women from overseas.

A baby boom fuelled by migration will lead to 20 per cent more pupils at secondary schools within ten years, Government figures show.

Angela Rayner MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, said that working parents need more support to cope with the “skyrocketing” cost of childcare and falling wages.

“The Tories are quite simply failing working parents, who are seeing the cost of their childcare skyrocket, their wages fall, and their Government failing to give them the support they need," she said. 

“Childcare costs have shot up since the Conservatives took office in 2010, and both wages and Government support have failed to keep pace with either the cost of childcare or the needs of families.”