Koru Kids

Koru Kids is a UK childcare company that connects families with vetted nannies, primarily for part-time arrangements such as after-school care, and then administers the employment relationship on the family's behalf. Families sign up free, search and message nannies in their local area, arrange interviews and trial shifts through the platform's portal and app, and receive guidance through the job offer process. The company positions the service around flexible hour patterns (including a few hours a few days per week) and one-to-one care in the child's own home, contrasted with childminder timings or block-booked after-school group settings.

Once a family hires, Koru Kids takes on the administrative requirements of legally employing a nanny, including HMRC registration, pension set-up, employment contracts, ongoing payroll and HMRC payments, and provides public liability insurance plus training and support for the nanny. Its recruitment team carries out background and safety checks, including enhanced DBS checks, reference checks and first aid/training requirements, and states that only the top 10% of applicants are accepted. Nanny profiles on the site list experience levels, age groups covered and days of availability, spanning students and parents with limited formal experience through to nannies with 20 years of childcare experience.

The company markets itself as an alternative both to standard nanny agencies, which it says typically charge around 10% of gross pay plus VAT for recruitment, and to a do-it-yourself approach in which families handle vetting, contracts, payroll and employer admin themselves.

Business model

Koru Kids operates a marketplace and managed-employment model: families search and message nannies for free, then pay an all-in hourly rate starting at £16.50 that bundles the nanny's pay, taxes, employer national insurance, pension contributions, public liability insurance and Koru Kids' service fee. A one-off £199 set-up fee applies the first time a family employs a nanny, covering an enhanced DBS check and registration with HMRC and the pensions regulator where needed; families are also asked for four weeks' pay upfront, refunded when the contract ends.

Revenue comes from a service fee embedded in the hourly rate charged to families, plus a one-time £199 set-up fee per first-time employer. Searching and messaging nannies is free, unlike the recruitment commission model the company attributes to standard agencies (estimated at 10% of gross pay plus VAT).

Traction

The company reports having helped more than 14,000 families, delivered more than 3.2 million hours of childcare, and built a network of more than 10,000 nannies across the UK. Public review ratings are stated as 4.1 stars on Trustpilot and 4.5 stars on Google, with individual family reviews dated between January and April 2026.