It’s often said that it takes a village to raise a family. This is especially true for UHNWs, who, with expansive estates and international lifestyles, rely on a network of trusted professionals to ensure their households run smoothly.
Our index celebrates advisers who connect clients with a wide range of domestic staff, including nannies, private chefs, chauffeurs and home-help nurses. It highlights the leading experts in household staffing, those with the experience and intuition to match key personnel with families across the globe.
Working with UHNW families brings unique requirements. From nannies who are academically equipped to prepare children for competitive private school interviews, to nurses fluent in the etiquette of maintaining a traditional English country home, every individual featured in our index is able to provide staff with the highest levels of experience, discretion and qualifications.
Louise Taylor, a leading figure in London’s nanny and governess staffing scene, notes a shift in the market. ‘Previously, families hired nannies and household staff separately. Now, there’s growing demand for full-time nanny-housekeepers,’ she tells Spear’s.
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She also observes a shift in academic expectations: clients increasingly seek nannies with bachelor’s degrees in education, rather than the traditional two-year childcare qualifications. The reason for this is that nannies are now expected to prepare children for entrance exams such as the 8+ and 11+, alongside being able to understand if a child is meeting their developmental needs.
Meanwhile, Hamilton George Care, a standout name in UHNW personalised nursing care, has invested heavily in the soft skills of its elderly care staff. Alongside Debrett’s, they have created a training programme in etiquette and lifestyle, helping carers understand how a traditional British home is kept and ensuring patients feel that they have continuity of lifestyle while being cared for.
A new addition to the Spear’s Index in 2025 is James Pawle of Signature Staff. His team is composed of professionals who have worked in the industry themselves. ‘Because they’ve done the job before and know the types of families we work with, they find it easier to understand who is right for the role,’ Pawle explains.
These domestic staff, nannies and nursing care providers offer an elite service, centred around discretion and personalised care. With access to some of the highest-educated and most experienced professionals in the care market, they are able to connect families with the support they need to keep their households running.
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- Methodology
- The best domestic staff, nannies and nursing care providers: some names to know
- The best domestic staff, nannies and nursing case providers: the complete list
- Contact us
Methodology
Each year, the Spear’s Research Unit reassesses and refreshes its rankings of the leading providers in each sector by gathering data from and about the advisers and firms themselves, assessing submission forms, collating nominations, carrying out peer reviews, reviewing data from third-party sources, gathering references and recommendations, canvassing experts and conducting hundreds of interviews.
Advisers are evaluated using a proprietary scoring system that assigns different weightings to certain attributes. These scores feed directly into each new set of rankings in the Spear’s Indices. Each of these indices are published first online (according to the research calendar) and then in print. Print publication takes the form of the annual Spear’s 500 directory, which includes the top advisers in every index.
[See also: A guide to The Spear’s 500: Everything you need to know]
Each featured adviser is profiled on spears500.com. The site allows users to search the Spear’s database of more than 4,000 entities to find one (or more) to meet their specific requirements by filtering for specific attributes such as an adviser’s location, their specialist expertise and information about their client base.
The best domestic staff, nannies and nursing care providers: some names to know
Izzy Boland
- Focus: Staffing for international UHNWs
- Position: Founder
- Firm: Cora Partners
Like so many people in the luxury household service industry, Izzy Boland of Cora Partners started her working life in ski chalets.
‘The chalets that we worked in were at the end of a cul-de-sac and had a gate; they were very private, so we were able to provide services to people who didn’t want the paparazzi being able to get in,’ she says. ‘A lot of them were Hollywood, football, celebrities. [We were] building a network and providing services to people who want something extra.’
Read Izzy Boland’s full profile on Spears500.com
Fred Lloyd George
- Focus: Homecare, nursing and rehabilitation
- Position: Founder
- Firm: Hamilton George Care
Following a six-year stint as an officer in the British Army, Fred Lloyd George worked at NHS Digital, where he organised their adult social care programme.
Realising there was a gap in the market when it came to finding good and consistent private at-home care, he founded his own company, Hamilton George Care, with fellow ex-army officer Alex Hamilton.
Read Fred Lloyd George’s full profile on Spears500.com
James Pawle
- Focus: Private household recruitment
- Position: Managing director and chairman
- Firm: Signature Staff
James Pawle is the managing director and chairman of Signature Staff, a household recruitment agency that specialises in sourcing staff for UHNWs in the UK and abroad. With a wide remit, Pawle can connect families with almost every type of support staff they may need, from housekeepers and house managers to private chefs, chauffeurs and childminders.
Singature Staff’s team is made up of individuals who have industry experience themselves, having previously worked in the type of role they will be hiring for. ‘Because they’ve done the job before and know the types of families we work with, they find it easier to understand who is right for the role,’ Pawle explains.
Read James Pawle’s full profile on Spears500.com
Louise Taylor
- Focus: Nannies, governesses and maternity nurses
- Position: Director
- Firm: Kensington Nannies
Louise Taylor joined Kensington Nannies three decades ago and has been managing the firm for more than 25 years. One of London’s premier agencies, the organisation is well established in the world of private childcare.
Taylor and her team recruit qualified and highly talented maternity nurses, early-years nannies, educators and governesses for private households in the UK and internationally, particularly in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. All candidates are pre-screened and undergo extensive background checks. ‘English nannies are one of the few [nationalities] who go into childcare with the intention of working in a private household,’ Taylor says of the international demand. ‘Being a nanny, culturally, is an acceptable career to do and is quite lucrative for the nanny.’
Read Louise Taylor’s full profile on Spears500.com
The best domestic staff, nannies and nursing care providers: the complete list
Click on the individual names to be directed to more detailed profiles of each adviser on The Spear’s 500 website. The table is ordered by ranking and then alphabetically by surname.
Contact us
- Click here to order a print copy of The Spear’s 500.
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- If you have missed calendar deadlines for our research cycles in 2025, you can still register your interest for updates about upcoming research and rankings.
