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What determines whether a provider needs to hire?
Adding an hour to a setting’s opening time adds a period that must be covered; it does not automatically add one employee for every hour. The key question is how many children will be present during that period and which staff must be on duty to meet the relevant ratio and qualification requirements.
- Attendance: Forecast how many children will attend in each room and time slot, including early drop-offs and late collections. A small, variable group may need a different plan from steady attendance throughout the extension.
- Age mix: Younger children require more staff per child under England’s reported minimum ratios, so the same attendance total can require different coverage depending on the children’s ages.
- Qualifications: Where a ratio depends on a practitioner’s qualification, that person must be available and working in the required capacity during the relevant period.
- Shift design: Staggered starts or dedicated early and late shifts may cover the new hours without extending every employee’s working day. The roster still has to account for contracts, breaks, absences and safe working arrangements.
- Reliability: A plan that works only when every scheduled employee is present may leave the setting unable to maintain ratios when someone is absent or attendance changes unexpectedly.
There is no established fixed number of extra employees per added opening hour. The answer has to come from the provider’s attendance forecast and a compliant roster, not from the length of the extension alone.
How do staff-to-child ratios affect early and late childcare in England?
In the Department for Education’s 2025 provider survey, providers reported minimum ratios of one staff member to three children under two, one to five children aged two, and one to either eight or thirteen children aged three to four, depending on whether a directly working approved Level 6-qualified practitioner was present. These are England figures reported for the 2025 survey year; check the applicable rules for the provider and period in question.
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For planning, apply the relevant ratio to the children who are actually present in each room and interval, while ensuring any qualification condition is met. The busiest period may set the highest coverage need, but quieter opening and closing periods still need a valid staffing arrangement. A ratio calculation is only one part of the plan: the provider must also meet applicable safeguarding, premises, employment and funded-hours requirements.
Can existing staff cover the extra hours?
Potentially. Providers can assess whether voluntary staggered shifts, split coverage or a combination with recruitment will cover the added period. Extending the setting’s day is not the same as asking one employee to work a longer day: the roster must fit contractual hours, breaks and safe working arrangements.
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Australian evidence offers examples of roster adjustments, but it should not be treated as proof that the same solution will work everywhere. The Australian Institute of Family Studies reported that, in the long day care settings it examined, extended opening hours were managed by adjusting staff rosters; examples included earlier starts for setup and planning. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission described efficient rostering as one way to balance staff numbers with the children attending at a given time. Different rules and operating conditions apply across countries.
Workforce-planning software can help providers combine attendance forecasts by room, day and hour with staff availability, qualifications and ratio requirements, according to the ACCC’s Australian childcare inquiry. Such tools can support planning; they do not remove the need for a provider to check that the roster is compliant and resilient.
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What do workforce and demand figures tell providers?
England’s 2025 provider survey, published by the Department for Education in 2026, estimated 353,700 paid childcare staff. Staffing accounted for 70% of costs for childminders and 88% for school-based providers. Those figures show that staffing is financially significant, but they are shares of total provider costs—not estimates of the marginal cost of adding an opening hour.
The same survey reported median hourly pay of £19.43 for school-based staff and £13.02 for group-based staff. These are medians by provider type for the 2025 survey year, not universal wage rates; they should not be treated as a complete estimate of employment costs.
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Workforce capacity is also a reported constraint. In provider pulses from November 2024 to May 2025, the Department for Education listed insufficient staff or childminder assistants among the most frequently cited challenges to delivering expanded funded childcare. In May 2025, 58% of providers expected to meet full demand for 30 funded hours from September 2025. That was a forecast about funded-hours demand—not a measured result or an estimate of capacity for evening, night or weekend care.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Is there evidence that families want longer opening hours?
The Department for Education’s consultation report said 14% of parents surveyed thought longer opening hours or more flexibility would make local childcare better suited to their needs. The report draws on earlier survey evidence, so this is not a current 2026 estimate of demand. It also noted that most providers in the underlying 2021 provider survey operated on weekdays for around 10 hours a day and that few offered weekend or post-6pm care.
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Those findings are useful context, not a count of families who would use a particular extension or providers who would need to hire. The report cautioned that its provider question did not ask about current opening hours, meaning some providers who indicated they might extend may already have offered those periods. It also identified practical constraints such as staffing and venue space.
A practical staffing check before extending hours
- Validate demand by time slot. Estimate likely attendance and age mix for the proposed early, late or weekend period. Parent interest in flexibility is not the same as confirmed attendance.
- Calculate coverage interval by interval. Apply the relevant local ratios to children in each room, and identify any qualification requirements that must be met while they are present.
- Build and stress-test the roster. Compare staggered existing shifts, dedicated early or late shifts, recruitment, or a mix. Check breaks, contracted hours, absences and last-minute changes in attendance.
- Budget the full operating cost. Include wages and associated employment costs, as well as any other costs of opening the setting for the added period. Provider-wide staffing cost shares do not calculate the marginal cost for an individual centre.
- Confirm operational and legal readiness. Check applicable safeguarding, premises, employment and funded-hours requirements for the jurisdiction and provider type before launching the schedule.
The result should be a time-specific staffing plan backed by realistic attendance assumptions—not a blanket headcount based on how many hours the doors stay open.
Quick Recap
Sources and jurisdiction
- Department for Education, Childcare and early years provider survey: 2025 release (England; workforce, ratios, costs and pay).
- Department for Education, Pulse surveys of childcare and early years providers, 2024 to 2025.
- Department for Education, Findings from the early years staff-child ratio consultation survey.
- Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Childcare inquiry: Interim report.
- Australian Institute of Family Studies, Flexible child care.
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