Private chefs on $300,000: the household staffing bill is climbing
A Morgan & Mallet study finds private chefs earning up to $300,000 and estate managers among the fastest-rising roles, as the wealthy staff more homes across more countries.
Private chefs are earning as much as $300,000 a year and butlers up to $180,000, according to a study by recruiter Morgan & Mallet International reported by CNBC on 10 July 2026. Demand for chefs, personal assistants, butlers, nannies, housekeepers, chauffeurs and estate managers has hit records as wealthy families buy more homes in more places and run more complicated lives. The result is a scramble for talent that is pushing pay up and shortening how long staff stay.
Where pay is rising fastest
In the United States, private chefs now earn between $100,000 and $300,000. Families increasingly want Michelin-trained cooks at home to avoid the crowds and attention of top restaurants, and celebrity chefs, or those who can handle specialist diets such as coeliac-safe cooking, can, as the report puts it, “name their price”. House managers are the fastest-rising role of all, according to co-founder Laurine Mallet, driven by growing property portfolios and a thin pool of good candidates. In the US, household managers now make between $150,000 and $250,000, and executive and personal assistants up to $250,000. Multilingual nannies with special-needs experience are scarce; some travelling nannies earn up to $163,000 in the United Arab Emirates.
The job has changed
Part of the cost is that these are no longer the roles they were. Butlers now run staff, technology, security and logistics across several homes, which is why their pay reaches $180,000. Estate managers are hardest to find because they are often asked to run more than three properties across different countries and legal systems. With families moving between residences and collecting residencies in more than one country, employers increasingly want staff who hold a Western passport and can travel.
Discretion has become a hiring requirement rather than a nicety. In Los Angeles, 77 per cent of personal assistants hired were required to sign non-disclosure agreements, and blanket bans on social media are now standard across household roles. Privacy and technology skills sit alongside cooking or childcare as core criteria.
Why it matters for the family office
Tenure tells the story. Where staff once stayed with one employer for decades, the average is now three years, so families face repeat searches and repeat premiums. For a family office, this is a line item that behaves less like domestic help and more like a competitive labour market, and it usually falls to the office to run recruitment, contracts, NDAs, payroll and cover across jurisdictions. The report is a recruiter’s, so the figures point in a direction that suits the firm, but the underlying pressures, more homes, more countries and a shortage of trusted people, are real. Household staffing belongs in the budget and the governance conversation, not at its edges.
Sources: CNBC.
