Feel The Benefit, in plain English.
Feel The Benefit is built on more than a decade of Workplace Nursery salary sacrifice experience. A fully managed service on modern technology, for employers of any size.
Nursery fees from gross pay, not net pay
Through a Workplace Nursery Scheme, nursery fees are paid from salary before Income Tax and National Insurance are deducted, rather than from take-home pay. Same nursery, same hours, same child; significantly lower cost.
The mechanism is the Cycle to Work scheme applied to nursery fees. It is recognised under ITEPA 2003 Part 4 Chapter 6 and has been a part of UK tax law for decades. It is not aggressive tax planning. It is a benefit the legislation specifically permits because it supports working parents.
There is no cost to join for employers or employees. In most cases the employer also saves thousands through reduced Employer’s National Insurance contributions.
Average full-time UK nursery fees
According to the Coram Childcare Survey 2025, the average full-time nursery place costs:
How the money actually flows
The boring-but-important details
The Workplace Nursery exemption is set out in the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, Part 4 Chapter 6, and HMRC has published guidance on operating the scheme for over twenty years. Our setup, documentation and ongoing administration are designed to follow that guidance.
We are Feel The Benefit Ltd, registered in England & Wales as company number 17024030. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office as a data controller, registration number ZC135441. All employer and employee data is handled under the UK GDPR, encrypted in transit and at rest, with multi-factor authentication on all administrator accounts.
Professional indemnity insurance is provided by Royal & Sun Alliance. If you need the policy specifics for your due diligence file, contact us and we will send them over.
Safeguarding of funds. Sacrificed funds sit in a designated client account, separate from the company’s operating account, between payroll run and nursery payment.
Leaving the scheme. Any in-flight period is settled on the standard cycle. There are no exit fees and no minimum term.
Works with your existing payroll
We integrate with Sage, Moneysoft, Xero, Workday and dozens of other UK payroll platforms. Where a client uses something less common, our open API allows direct integration.
We are supporters of the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter and members of the Better Business Network. Read more about our commitments.
Credentials & accreditations
What you actually have to do, and what we handle
“Fully managed” gets used a lot in B2B services. Here is what it means in practice. Typical setup time from signed agreement to first payroll run: around a week. Typical ongoing admin per month, once running, for the employer: under 30 minutes.
| What we handle | What you do |
|---|---|
| ✓ Scheme design and documentation | Tell us your headcount and nursery-using employees |
| ✓ HMRC compliance setup | Sign the participating employer agreement |
| ✓ Payroll software integration | Confirm your payroll software to us |
| ✓ Nursery liaison and onboarding | We can let your staff know they have access to the scheme |
| ✓ Employee enrolment dashboard | Approve scheme enrolment requests (one click is all it takes!) |
| ✓ Monthly reconciliation and audit trail | Nothing for you to do |
| ✓ Ongoing employee queries | Leave that to us |
| ✓ HMRC documentation | We take care of this |
| ✓ Reporting | All available in a single click |
Feel The Benefit, by the numbers
Why we built Feel The Benefit
A decade of administering Workplace Nursery schemes made one thing very clear. The scheme works, the savings are real, and the families who use it stay in work as a direct result. But there is room for improvement. Setting a scheme up has historically meant forms, spreadsheets, and slow interfaces, with an admin overhead that can put off smaller employers off entirely. The result is that a benefit the legislation was specifically designed to make widely available has stayed in the hands of large employers with HR teams to run the paperwork.
Feel The Benefit exists to change that. Quick loading pages, fully automated systems, easy for employers and employees to (ahem) Feel The Benefit of saving thousands of pounds on nursery fees through a managed salary sacrifice nursery scheme that is set up in days allowing employees to be making savings from their next pay. The saving mechanism is unchanged. The friction around it is gone.
Why this matters for working families
Research published by the Office for Budget Responsibility highlights a 9:1 ratio of mothers to fathers leaving employment to look after their children — a pattern strongly linked to the gender pay gap and the high cost of childcare.
A Workplace Nursery Scheme addresses this problem directly. By making nursery care significantly more affordable, employers can help retain skilled staff who might otherwise leave employment because childcare costs make it financially unworkable to stay.
- Coram Childcare Survey 2025 — UK nursery fee data
- OBR: Labour Market Inactivity for Caring Purposes
Built on experience
Feel The Benefit was founded by Vic Johnston. Before founding Feel The Benefit, Vic was a director for many years at an employee benefits provider whose schemes were used by employers ranging from one-person businesses to multinationals with thousands of staff.
Alongside the hands-on experience, Feel The Benefit benefits from a board of advisors and investors who bring additional expertise in finance, employment law and technology. That combination of hands-on scheme experience and wider strategic backing is whay has allowed the FTB platform to be an absolute class leader in terms of performance and ease of use.
There is considerable experience in our team and we are always happy to help.
Vic Johnston, Founder & Director
Questions we hear most
Want to talk?
The fastest way to find out whether Workplace Nursery would work for your business is to ask. Call 0800 888 6629 or use the form below and we will come back to you the same working day.
Got a Question?
Call us on 0800 888 6629 or
email info@feelthebenefit.co.uk
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