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What Does a Nanny Do? Duties & Responsibilities

By Filipino Nanny | Updated 21 August 2026

A nanny’s primary job is childcare. Typical duties can include supervising children, preparing child-related meals, supporting routines, school or nursery runs, activities, children’s laundry and keeping child-used areas reasonably organised where these tasks are agreed. General household cleaning is not automatically a nanny duty; if the job genuinely combines childcare and housekeeping, define it as a nanny-housekeeper role.

The exact job should be written around the family’s children, timetable and agreed responsibilities rather than a generic list copied from another household.

What are a nanny’s core childcare duties?

A professional nanny role is centred on the children in the nanny’s care. Depending on age and the agreed job description, responsibilities may include:

Those duties should be adapted to the actual children and household. The job description is the place to state what is expected; it should not be left to assumptions after the nanny starts.

What child-related household tasks can be included?

Families often include tasks directly connected with the children, such as children’s laundry, tidying play or bedroom areas, cleaning up after children’s meals, preparing bags for school or activities, and keeping child-related items organised. These are different from taking responsibility for the whole household’s cleaning workload.

If the family expects substantial adult laundry, general cleaning, household cooking or home-management work as well as childcare, compare a nanny-housekeeper role instead of quietly widening the nanny job.

What is not automatically part of a nanny role?

A nanny is not automatically the household cleaner, housekeeper, chef, personal assistant or round-the-clock caregiver. Duties outside childcare should be discussed explicitly, allowed for in the time available, and written into the role if both sides agree.

A live-in arrangement also does not mean the nanny is permanently on duty. Working hours, overnight responsibilities, rest time and accommodation are separate terms that need to be agreed. See our live-in nanny guide for the arrangement itself.

How do nanny duties change with the child’s age?

The role should follow the child’s needs rather than a fixed checklist. With babies, the working day may centre on feeds, naps, hygiene, walks and developmentally appropriate play. With toddlers, routines can add meals, outings, play and nursery logistics. With school-aged children, school runs, activities, homework routines and holiday cover can become more prominent.

Our nanny services by child age page covers those age-stage differences in more detail. It should not be read as a promise that every candidate has every type of experience; individual experience must be checked.

How is a nanny different from a nanny-housekeeper?

Area Nanny Nanny-housekeeper
Primary role Childcare Childcare plus a defined household workload
Household tasks Mainly child-related tasks where agreed Broader housekeeping tasks where time and priorities allow
Role design Built around children, routines and childcare hours Needs an explicit split between childcare and housekeeping
Main risk if poorly scoped General household duties quietly added to a childcare role Two full workloads expected at the same time

If both childcare and household help matter, use our role selector before writing the job.

What our enquiry data tells us about role definition

Our current client-enquiry dataset contains 203 submissions from 13 April 2025 to 20 August 2026. Families can select more than one role, so the role counts overlap. Nanny was selected 71 times and nanny-housekeeper 135 times; 118 enquiries selected full-time and 85 part-time.

That difference is useful because it shows why duty definitions matter on this site. A large share of enquiries reaching the agency are not simply asking for childcare under the word “nanny”; they are actively considering a combined nanny-housekeeper role. In the optional free-text field, 18 entries mentioned cleaning and 18 mentioned cooking. Those aggregate keyword counts do not tell us what any one family required, but they reinforce the need to ask whether household work is truly part of the job.

Our enquiry form therefore separates role type from full-time/part-time status, weekly hours, days and start date. That is how we recommend families think about the brief: first name the role, then define the working pattern.

How should you write nanny duties into a job description?

Start with the tasks that must happen every working day or week. Separate essential duties from occasional tasks, state the children and ages involved, list working days and approximate hours, and make any driving, travel, pet, cooking or overnight expectations explicit rather than implied.

Use our nanny and housekeeper job-description templates to turn the duty list into a recruitment brief. The later employment contract records the agreed employment terms; the two documents serve different purposes.

How do you assess whether a candidate fits the duties?

Compare the candidate’s actual experience with the job you have written. Ask about situations that match the children’s ages and the responsibilities in your home, check references, and use scenario questions to explore judgement. Do not infer competence, English ability, reliability or caring ability from nationality.

Our nanny interview questions and vetting and screening process explain the next stage.

What should you do next?

If childcare is clearly the primary role, review our Filipino nanny services in London. If you still need to decide whether the role should be nanny, nanny-housekeeper or housekeeper, use the role selector before starting recruitment.

Sources and methodology