COSTS of childcare have risen up to seven times faster than wages since the financial crash, new figures reveal.

On average, parents of one-year-olds in England have seen nursery fees increase more than four times faster than their incomes since 2008, analysis by the TUC shows.

The average wage rose by 12 per cent in basic cash terms. But childcare costs shot up by 48 per cent.

In London, childcare has risen 7.4 times more quickly than pay. In the East Midlands it was seven times as much and in the West Midlands almost five times.

There is government support available for childcare for kids above two years of age — and from September the government announced it was doubling help for three and four-year-olds in England to 30 hours a week.

But most of the 950,000 working parents with one-year-olds do not get any state help at all.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “The cost of childcare is spiralling but wages aren’t keeping pace.

“Parents are spending more and more of their salaries on childcare and the picture is even worse for single parents.

“Nearly a million working parents with one-year-old kids have eye-watering childcare bills. There is a real gap in childcare support for one-year-olds until government assistance kicks in at age two.”

TUC figures show that a single parent in England working full-time with a one-year-old in nursery for 21 hours a week spent 21 per cent of their wages on childcare last year, up from around a 17 per cent in 2008.

The union confederation is calling for universal free childcare from the end of maternity leave and for employers to step up in funding childcare.

Family and Childcare Trust chief executive Ellen Broome said: “For too many parents, high childcare costs mean that it does
not pay to work.”