How much can I earn?
By the end of the second year Carewatch, Everycare and Kare Plus all estimate you could be making a profit of between £60,000 and £100,000. This is based on the number of care hours a week you are supplying. Long term nursing contracts will make more than caring contracts as they require more specialised staff.
For example, a healthcare worker might earn between £5 and £8 and hour depending on the level of skill – from simply fetching shopping up to a trained disability carer. A trained nurse can command anything from £9 to £25 – ranging from a nursing auxiliary to experienced sister.
"And like everything else it varies according to the area of the country," says Debbie Ashmore at Kare Plus. "A qualified nurse in London wouldn't get out of bed for less than £18 an hour."
A client will have to pay you proportionally more for these kinds of contracts, as specialist staff is in short supply. You don't have to just get the big contracts to make money, though - day to day work is still lucrative.
The franchisor won't dictate how much you charge clients. However, to give an idea, Carewatch recommends that your profit margin shouldn't be below £3. Typically, if you were paying £5 an hour to the carer, you would bill the client for £9.
Inevitably, your potential income will be affected by your ability to expand the business. As Mary Cottrell of Everycare explains,
"If any one of these four scenarios happens, the business could be affected. If you can't recruit one, nurses or two, carers it will block growth. Then if you achieve these but can't sell three, nurses or four, carers to your clients it will again block growth."
But this is an all or nothing business. Judy Paterson of Everycare, Chatham explains, "I get too many staff on the books and work doesn't come in so they leave. Then work picks up and I don't have enough staff. You just have to put up with it." And work round it as best you can.
