Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Childcare.co.uk is a multi-award winning online networking platform that helps connect parents, childcare providers, schools and private tutors.

Parents, childcare providers and tutors can create a free profile advertising their requirements or services that we publish on our website and mobile apps.

Unlike a traditional childcare agency we do not charge commission fees or booking fees. Members deal direct, carry out their own checks and references on each other and negotiate their own rates. It's possible to find childcare or childcare work without paying us a penny!

We are the UK's largest online childcare and tutors platform and have helped over 3 million people find childcare, tutors and childcare work.

Our service can also be accessed via our iPhone, iPad and Android mobile apps.

We are an online advertising platform and do not make checks on any of our members but provide lots of information, advice and tools to allow members to undertake their own checks.

Childcare providers can upload documents such as a DBS check, registration certificate and first aid certificate. Parents can then request access to view these documents by clicking the 'Request Document Access' button on a profile.

Parents should do as much research as possible once they have found a childcare provider that they are interested in using. Always speak to them on the phone and arrange at least one face to face meeting, in a public place, before you use their services. Ask them as many questions as you can think of and get them to show you original proof of their qualifications, registration certificates, insurance and DBS checks. You should ask childcare providers for references from other parents and you should verify these by contacting the person giving the reference to ensure they are genuine. We have a free online guide on Checking Childcare Providers which parents should read before you use any childcare provider.

Childminders in England must be registered with Ofsted. In Wales childminders must be registered with Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW). Childminders in Scotland must be registered with the Scottish Care Inspectorate. It is illegal to advertise as a Childminder unless you are registered with one of these organisations. Parents should always check that a childminder is registered before using them.

Our website contains lots of free help and advice and our Safety Centre contains tips on how to stay safe when using our service.

Verified members are indicated with a blue tick next to their profile screen name. Verified members have uploaded an identity document such as a DBS check, registration certificate, passport, driving licence, utility bill or council tax bill to our My Documents feature. Full details are shown on each member profile under the My Documents section. 

We have manually reviewed these documents to check that they appear to be genuine. Parents can request access to certain uploaded documents via the 'Request Document Access' button on a member profile and if the member chooses to accept your request, you will receive an email with instructions of how to view them. Providers are able to delete a document once it has been validated if they wish.

We strongly recommend you ask to see original copies of the documents before you hire a childcare provider in order verify the true accuracy for yourself. Find out more about checks & references.

It's completely free to register with us and to add a profile advertising your requirements or the services you offer.

Free members can read and reply to messages that have been sent to them from our paying members. Free members can also send messages to paying members and view their direct contact details. Babysitters can apply for babysitter jobs without paying.

It is possible to find childcare or childcare work without paying anything at all. To register for free click here

We will never sell the personal data that you give us when you join or create a profile. The information we ask for is solely used for providing the service we offer. If you create a profile, your details will be displayed on our platform for other users to see once it has been reviewed and approved by our moderation team.

Our platform features our own unique secure, private messaging system which is used by members to contact each other. Members do not even have to disclose their email address to other members until they choose to do so.

Please ensure you read our Safety Centre for advice on how to stay safe when using our service.

We provide members with a range of tools and settings to protect their privacy. These are managed via the Privacy Settings page of your account.

We follow security procedures as required under UK Data Protection Legislation (the Data Protection Act 1998) to protect the information that we store about you from unauthorised access. Our Data Protection Registration Number is: Z1605379

Please read our Privacy Policy for more details.

Childcare.co.uk gold membership is a subscription service for parents, childcare providers and tutors who want to be more proactive in their search. Standard free members must wait for a response to their profile but gold members can use our safe and secure private messaging system to initiate contact with all other members. Don't sit back and wait for someone to contact you; become a gold member and get talking right away! Gold members have the greatest chance of success. Gold membership is the essential tool for parents with an immediate childcare requirement or for childcare service providers seeking new customers.

Gold members are featured in the search results with a gold circle around the photo.

Another benefit of gold membership is that free members can also send you messages, so you can be sure never to miss a message from any member, even if they aren't a gold member themselves. Gold members can also make their direct contact details, such as their telephone number, available to free members.

Gold members can also view a user's Direct Contact Details, such as their phone number and chat by SMS text or WhatsApp if a member has chosen to add that information to their profile.

Additional special features and benefits are available for gold members including up to 30 minutes free legal advice on childcare and employment law issues from our legal partner and free online access to Creative Steps magazine.

Gold members also get access to over 500 free online training courses & webinars from Educare, Laser Learning and Virtual College worth over £5000 plus watch webinars on our Webinar Player service.

Gold members can access Childcare Discounts, a cashback savings scheme, where you can save money on your everyday shopping. Buy vouchers for high street shops, online stores and supermarkets and earn cashback. Users can typically save up to £1000 per year.

Gold members can apply for free tastecard and tastecard+ membership giving 50% off and 2-FOR-1 deals at over 7000 restaurants, 40% off cinema tickets and 50% off days out at major UK attractions - worth £79.99. Gold members can also apply for a free Kids Pass worth up to £75.

Childminder, nanny, tutor, babysitter, maternity nurse and nursery nurse gold members can also choose to opt-in for free £10m public liability insurance and other insurance benefits.

There is a charge for being a Gold member which helps cover the costs of running our platform.

Read more about all the gold membership benefits.

Ready to become a gold member? Upgrade now

Gold membership is a recurring subscription. You can cancel future payments at anytime by going to www.childcare.co.uk/cancel

We have spent millions of pounds developing Childcare.co.uk and continue to spend millions of pounds per year in advertising in order to attract the highest quality parents, childcare providers and tutors as our members. You can view our latest national TV advert here.

We're the number one childcare and tutors search site in the UK and are growing all the time. We invest the majority of our revenue into improving our platform to ensure we offer the best possible service and innovative features.

Corporate Membership is a premium service available to qualifying employees if their employer has paid for them to have access to Childcare.co.uk Corporate Membership service as an employee benefit.

Corporate members are able to send messages to all members and all members can contact them. Corporate members can also telephone and WhatsApp members who have chosen to make their phone numbers available to others.

You should be informed by your Employer if you qualify for access to Corporate Membership and will have received details on how to access the service. If you require assistance with Corporate Membership please contact us.

Corporate Membership is different to Gold Membership and does not include all the gold membership benefits.

If you are an employer, you can find out more about offering Childcare.co.uk Corporate Membership as an employee benefit.

When you become a member we send you an account activation email to the email address you provided us with. You must click the link in the email to activate your account. This is so we can confirm that the email address you have given us is correct. If you do not receive the account activation email, please check your junk or spam folder as some internet service providers are over zealous and may confusingly associate our emails as unwanted.

If you do not click the link in the account activation email then we may not be able to send you email alerts and notifications from our platform such as when you receive a new message. Other restrictions to our service may also apply. It is therefore very important that you click the link to activate your account.

Your profile is your public advert on our platform, detailing the services you are seeking or offering.

As a parent, your profile shows potential candidates the type of services you are seeking such as nanny, childminder, babysitter, nursery or tutor. You can use your profile to state which specific days and times of day you require the services and any other relevant information.

For childcare providers, your profile shows the services you offer, your experience, your qualifications, reviews you have received, your fees, the days and times you are available and other information. We also show any documents you have uploaded to our My Documents feature.

We have a guide on writing your profile with some useful hints and tips.

Having a public profile will give you the best chance of finding childcare or childcare work but if you don't want a public profile, you can hide your profile.

There is Direct Contact Details section in your profile that allows you to optionally add your direct contact details such as your telephone number.  These can allow other members to call, SMS text, or WhatsApp you.

In order to help protect your privacy, if you are a free member, Direct Contact Details can only be viewed by gold members and corporate members. This ensures that only the most serious users, who have gone through extra security checks as a result of making a payment, will be able to access this data. If you are a gold member or corporate member then we also allow free members to view your Direct Contact Details. You can control who can access your Direct Contact Details via our Privacy Settings page. We limit the number of Direct Contact Detail views that each member can make in a 24 hour period to ensure that Direct Contact Details data is not abused. You can see exactly who has viewed your Direct Contact Details on the Who's Looked at Me? page.

Tags are a way for both parents and childcare providers to add keywords to their profile to help describe the childcare services they are seeking or providing. Depending upon whether you are a parent or childcare provider, you will be able to choose from a range of tags when you create or edit your profile.

Tags are used to create the My Summary section of childcare provider profiles and are used under the My Requirements section of parent profiles. Tags are also used by our search features to help members refine and filter their search.

Featured profiles are profiles that are highlighted in the the search results with a gold circle around the photo. 

In order to be featured you must be a gold member or corporate member.

To search for childcare, just select the type of service you are looking for and enter your full postcode.

You can also your our Advanced Search page to refine your search further.

Read our guide on how to search for childcare and searchchildcare.co.uk today!

Lists are a way for members to organise members into groups. For example, if you are recruiting for a nanny, you could create a list of candidates you are interested in. Parents might create a list of their favourite babysitters. Childcare providers could create a list of potential jobs there are interested in.

You can create as many lists as you like and can give them a name of your choice. Lists are private and members added to a list are not notified.

To add a member to a list, click the 'Add to List' button shown on member profiles and in the search results.

Once you have created a profile it is placed in a queue to be reviewed. When your profile has been reviewed and accepted by our moderation team it will go live on our platform. This process usually takes less than 24 hours. Will will send you an email to let you know when your profile is live. When you go the 'My Profile' page we will display the status of your profile at the top of the screen.

If you make a change to your profile then your previous profile will stay online until the new changes have been approved by our moderation team.

We only accept photos of either the parent/family or childcare provider who is registered to use our platform. Photos of childcare providers containing more than one person or children are not allowed. If you are a company we accept company logos that do not contain any alpha-numeric characters in place of a photo. If you add or change your photo the new photo won't appear until it has been reviewed and approved by our moderation team.

Simply use the Childcare.co.uk our proprietary secure, private messaging system to send them a message. To send a message click the 'Message' button on a profile.

When you send someone a message, we will send them an email to let them know they have a new message waiting.

If a user has completed the Direct Contact Details section of their profile, you can also contact the user directly by telephone, SMS text message or WhatsApp.

Free members can send messages to paying members. In order to send messages to all members you must upgrade to Childcare.co.uk gold membership or be a corporate member.

In order to prevent our messaging system being abused and used to send spam messages we limit the number of messages that each user can send within a 24 hour period. If you receive a message to say that you have exceeded your limit and wish to send more messages, please contact us and we will review your account with a view to increasing your daily limit subject to the content of your previous messages being acceptable.

Yes, it is possible to optionally add your phone number and mobile number to the Direct Contact Details section of your profile. This information can be viewed by paying members and also by free members, if you are a gold member or corporate member.

For security, safety and confidentiality reasons we do not allow direct contact information such as email addresses and phone numbers within the standard area of your profile.

Parents and childcare providers are free to disclose their contact details in private messages.

All members, parents and childcare providers, are now able to verify their account and receive a blue tick next to their screen name.

It's completely free to become a verified member and we are starting to make it compulsory for childcare provider members. Verification is necessary to confirm the identity of childcare providers and to ensure our platform is safe for our community.

To become verified you need to upload ONE of the following documents: passport, driving licence, council tax bill, utility bill, DBS check, regulatory registration certificate.

Once your document is uploaded, it is digitally watermarked, encrypted, stored securely and queued for review by a member of our security team.

The document is manually validated by a human operator to ensure it appears to be genuine and the details contained within the document match the account details.

WE DO NOT SHOW YOUR DOCUMENTS TO ANY OTHER MEMBERS unless you choose to expressly invite another member to view them.

Once a document has been validated, members can delete the document if they wish and will retain their verified member status.

Read more about the security of your documents and what we do to keep them safe.

Upload your documents now to become a verified member.

Yes, childcare providers can add a website link to their profile which will can be accessed by all members, if the childcare provider is a gold member.

We do not allow website addresses or links within the main sections of a profile.

Parents can rate childcare providers using our 5 star rating system. All childcare providers start with a rating score of zero. The stars rating is based upon the average rating of all the reviews that a childcare provider has received.

Childcare providers can respond to all their reviews and the responses are displayed alongside the original review. Reviews should meet our Review Guidelines

Yes, you are free to link to the Childcare.co.uk website from your own site. You are also free to link to your unique Childcare.co.uk profile page.

We rarely have discount codes available as we strive to offer the best possible value to our gold members with over £5000 worth of benefits included with gold membership.

Some voucher sites publish fake voucher codes. Check the validity of a Childcare.co.uk voucher code using our online tool.

If you have found childcare or a childcare job and would like to keep your account active but would like remove your profile from our site then you can visit our Privacy Settings page which has an option to hide your profile. Once your profile is hidden you will be able to reactivate it in the future by visiting the Privacy Settings page again.

Whilst you profile is hidden all other features of your account will remain active.

Please note that hiding your profile will not cancel any recurring payments associated with a paid subscription. To cancel recurring payments go to our cancellation page.

To cancel your gold membership subscription simply visit our cancellation page at www.childcare.co.uk/cancel

Gold membership can be cancelled at anytime before your next payment is due. If you cancel your subscription, you will still be able to use any remaining time on your gold membership before it expires.

Once you have cancelled your subscription, you will receive a cancellation reference number on-screen and by email which you should retain as proof of cancellation.

If you experience any difficulty in cancelling your gold membership then please contact us for assistance.

If you would like to close your account for any reason, at any time, simply visit our cancellation page at www.childcare.co.uk/cancel and you will be able to close your account.

If you wish to make a request for us to delete your personal data, in accordance with your rights under GDPR, then please contact us.

If your question has not been answered please contact us and will get back to you with a response as soon as possible. We aim to answer all customer support requests within 24 hours.