Working as a Nanny or Childcare Professional in a Ski Resort

Most ski season job guides run through the same list: chalet host, ski instructor, bar staff, lift operator. Childcare roles — nannies, crèche assistants, children's activity leaders — get mentioned briefly if at all, despite being one of the most consistently in-demand positions in the market. Large resorts have children's ski schools that need staffing. UK chalet companies that run family-oriented operations need dedicated nannies. Wealthy families who book private chalets want to bring qualified childcare with them. The demand is real; the supply of people who know how to position themselves for it is lower than it should be.

What the Roles Actually Look Like

There are three distinct types of childcare work in ski resorts, and they're different enough that it's worth being clear about which you're applying for.

Resort Crèche and Children's Ski School

Large resorts — Whistler, Les Trois Vallées, Espace Killy, major Andean resorts — run dedicated facilities for young children while their parents ski. This includes crèches for under-5s and structured children's ski school programmes for slightly older children. Resort operators hire childcare staff directly for these roles.

Qualification requirements vary. Some activity assistant roles are entry-level and primarily require energy, patience, and a way with children. Others — particularly crèche supervisor positions or roles working with under-2s — require formal childcare qualifications. If you're applying in France, some French language helps with local staff communication, though it's not always essential for resort-operated roles where English is an internal language.

Chalet Company Nanny

This is the most common route for UK-qualified childcare workers. The major UK chalet operators — Crystal, Inghams, Scott Dunn, and various boutique companies — run family chalet programmes where the nanny is a defined member of the chalet team. The role typically involves managing children during the day while parents ski: structured activities, meals, nap times, and evening bedtime routines.

Some roles are pure nanny positions; others are combined chalet host/nanny roles where you're doing both childcare and some of the broader chalet work. The combined roles are more common at smaller operators and are worth approaching with clear eyes about the workload involved.

Accommodation, meals, and a ski pass are usually included with chalet company positions. This meaningfully changes the financial comparison with other seasonal roles — the headline salary is lower than you'd earn privately, but the package is comprehensive.

Private Family Nanny

Some families who book independent chalets hire a private nanny directly — not through a tour operator. These roles are advertised through specialist ski nanny agencies and general childcare job boards. The pay can be significantly higher than chalet company positions, reflecting both the qualifications required and the fact that there's no operator taking a margin. The trade-off is that accommodation and logistics are less structured, and (particularly in France post-Brexit) the visa and right-to-work situation is more complex for the family to arrange.

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What Qualifications You Need

The childcare market is one of the few seasonal employment areas where qualifications genuinely gate which roles you can apply for. The baseline for most crèche and chalet company positions:

NNEB (Nursery Nurse Education Board) qualification, or NVQ/CACHE Level 3 in Childcare and Education. These are roughly equivalent and are the standard minimum for professional childcare roles. If you have one of these, you're eligible for the full range of positions. If you don't, your options are more limited to junior activity assistant roles rather than nanny-specific positions.

Paediatric First Aid certificate. This is essential and often a condition of employment rather than a preference. Most operators will require it before you start; some offer it as part of onboarding. Don't assume you can get it after arriving — get it before you apply.

Enhanced DBS check. Required for any childcare role in the UK, and required by UK employers operating in France or other European resorts. This takes time to come through — start it well before you're planning to travel. Applications submitted in October for a December start can be tight depending on processing volumes.

French language is useful but not usually a formal requirement for roles with UK operators. It helps with local crèche communication and day-to-day resort life, but the major chalet companies operate internally in English.

For first-season applicants without previous resort experience: some operators will take you on the strength of qualifications and good references; others want at least one season's experience first. Ask directly when you're making contact — don't assume either way.

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Where to Find These Roles

Specialist ski nanny agencies:

• Nanny Poppinz Ski (nannypoppinz.co.uk) — dedicated ski nanny placement
• The Ski Nanny (theskinanny.co.uk) — another specialist

Broader childcare job boards:

• Childcare.co.uk and Nannyjob.co.uk include private family listings, including some ski resort postings

Direct to chalet companies: Crystal, Inghams, and Scott Dunn all advertise childcare roles in their seasonal hiring rounds. Applying directly to the operator — rather than waiting for listings on third-party boards — tends to get applications seen earlier in the recruitment cycle.

Natives.co.uk covers a broad range of seasonal roles and includes some childcare listings.

Hiring for the coming winter season typically starts from May/June onwards for the major operators. Don't wait until September.

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The Lifestyle Reality

Childcare in a resort is front-loaded into mornings and afternoons — the windows when parents are on the mountain. This is meaningfully different from chalet host work, where breakfast, afternoon tea, and dinner service take up a large portion of the day. Nannies typically get more flexible midday time, which in practice means more skiing than a chalet host gets on the same contract.

Evenings involve bedtime routines with children rather than dinner service — earlier finish, but consistent rather than variable depending on the table. Days off are usually two per week, the same as other chalet roles.

The work itself is what you'd expect: rewarding when the family gels and the children respond well; genuinely demanding when they don't. Resort nannying involves managing children in an unfamiliar environment (the mountains, altitude, cold), often with at least mild altitude fatigue in the first week, sometimes with homesickness or disrupted sleep patterns in younger children. Experience handling transitions and new environments is worth noting in applications.

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The Visa Situation

Working for a UK chalet operator in France, they handle the work permit and right-to-work process — it's their responsibility, and the established operators do it routinely. This is the straightforward route.

Private family arrangements are more complex. A family hiring you to work in France needs to sponsor your right to work as a UK national, which involves paperwork most private individuals haven't done and won't want to do. It's possible, but it's a meaningful barrier. If a private family is offering very competitive pay but hasn't figured out the visa piece, treat that as a flag rather than a minor detail to sort out later.

For EU and EEA nationals, freedom of movement applies and you can work in France without restriction.

For more on working in France: see the France visa guide. For a broader look at how seasonal employment works across different role types, see types of jobs in ski resorts.