‘Cost of childcare less in this area’

hour, followed by babysitting at £6.97, childminding at £5.42 and day nurseries at £4.04.

The London hourly average for childcare sits nearly 35% higher than Kirklees at £8.45, meaning Kirklees parents pay on average £2.17 an hour less than parents in the capital.

Parents in Kirklees can find out childcare costs in their locality by putting their postcode into childcare.co.uk’s online calculator.

Nannying in Kirklees is £1.12 cheaper per hour than the national average of £9.81 and babysitting is £1.35 cheaper than the national average of £8.32.

While childminding in Kirklees is actually 53p more expensive than the national average of £4.89, Kirklees day nurseries are more than £1.50 cheaper than the rest of the country with the national average sitting at £5.60.

The survey also found that more than 1,300 people are actively looking for childcare in Kirklees with more than 442 service providers searching for work – meaning demand is outstripping supply significantly.

Richard Conway, chief executive and founder of childcare.co.uk, said: “Prices for all types of commodities and services change based on location, and it’s no different for childcare. London is known to be more expensive than the rest of the country for most goods, but it’s interesting to see that places such as Kirklees are so much cheaper.”

He added: “We know that childcare is a worry for parents across the UK and it’s interesting to see such a big deficit between the number of childcare providers in the area and the number of parents in need of childcare.”

Childcare.co.uk is billed as the UK’s largest online community of parents, childcare providers, schools and private tutors.

More than 1.5m have used the service since it launched in 2009 to access information guides and, training courses, network, join forums and support groups and pay childcare fees online.