Working for a wealthy family or VIP is one of the most rewarding careers in private service. These roles cover everything from running an estate to supporting a family’s daily life.
Most people get into the role the same way, a few years of experience in high-end service first, good references, then a specialist agency that introduces them to families.
This guide explains what the work involves, what you can earn, and how to get hired.
What working for a VIP or wealthy family actually involves
Roles in private households cover a wide range: butlers, personal assistants, nannies, chauffeurs, and chefs. Together these are known as household staff. The job is to keep a wealthy family’s day running smoothly.
In the jobs we’ve advertised for our employer clients since 2022, housekeepers were the most (32%), then nannies and governesses (20%), domestic couples (9%), house and estate managers (7%), private chefs (7%), personal assistants (6%) and butlers (5%).
You will handle sensitive information and keep standards high at all times. Schedules can change fast, so being flexible matters.
Morgan Richez, our co-founder, is honest with candidates about the hardest part:
“The most difficult [part] is the flexibility. Sometimes the clients can ask for a last-minute request very late. It’s going to be difficult for your own life. If you have a family, children, it’s not easy.
“You need to have a wife or husband who can understand you are not here for the dinner.
“Sometimes [clients] can speak in a bad way, not aggressive of course, but they can forget [to say] thank you and go straight to the point.
“It’s not that easy sometimes for your ego.”
Jobs working for rich people: what does the work actually look like?
The range of work is far wider than most people expect. Over the years, Morgan & Mallet has worked on some interesting briefs. The quoted words come straight from our job briefs we worked on for clients:
- A private chef needed for a five-day fine dining event at a stately home in the Orkney Islands, hosting five Canadian couples on a tour of Scotland.
- A traveling PA and governess in Los Angeles (2024), “accompanying and assisting a 15-year-old girl during the client’s holiday whilst traveling to Los Angeles, Paris, and London.”
- A private chef in New Jersey (2025) with “a strong background in fine-dining or Michelin-level cuisine and a health-focused, vegetarian approach.”
- A household manager for “a newly purchased brand-new 40,000sqf villa in Dubai” (2022), who would help hire and train the rest of the team: maids, nannies, a groundskeeper, a chef and a driver.
- A traveling private chef in Saudi Arabia (2022), cooking for one person and going with them “worldwide (Europe, the Middle East, the USA, etc).”
- A laundress for a villa on the French Riviera (2022), whose whole job was looking after delicate fabrics.
Every brief is different. That is part of what makes this sector so different from a standard career path.
Not every wealthy employer is the same. Laurine Mallet, our other co-founder, put it this way:
“It’s not because they are rich [that] they treat people badly. It depends on your education, your mindset… I [have] met clients [who were] really rude, and people richer and very, very nice and open-minded.”
Essential skills to get hired by a VIP
We looked at what the 2,366 private household jobs we advertised between April 2022 and June 2026 asked candidates for. Here is how often these came up:
- A driving licence: 52% of our job ads
- Discretion or confidentiality: 48%
- Two languages or more: 35%, most often English and French
- Being able to travel with the family: 15%
- A hotel or hospitality background: 9%
Source: our job ads, April 2022 to June 2026, with ads posted twice (in English and French) counted once. How we count.
Discretion and confidentiality
Discretion is the most valued quality in private service. You will come across sensitive personal or business information, and keeping it private is essential.
Families trust you with details about their lives. That trust is the foundation of the role.
Laurine, our co-founder, once had a butler lose a job he had already been offered, because of the photos from his last job on his Facebook page. One showed his old employer’s helicopter.
“I saw on Facebook he posted photo[s] [with] his previous boss… I called him straight [away]… [But] the client [had already] seen the picture on Facebook and he didn’t [get] the job.
“As soon as you work for [wealthy] networks, sometimes you are confused… you think you are maybe a part of the family… And you can forget easily you are just [an] employee.”
Reliability
One of our recruiters in California wrote to us about what her clients care about most:
“Most of my clients are looking for efficiency and reliability. It seems to be a major concern as to whether candidates will show up on time or at all.”
Salaries in the luxury household staff industry in the USA
Pay in private service is competitive. The table below shows the ranges of salaries in the US from our Household Staff Salaries Annual Report 2025/26, for the private households we recruit for.
These are ranges for experienced staff, it’s not starting pay.
| Role | Annual salary (US) |
|---|---|
| Butler | $90,000 to $180,000 |
| Personal assistant | $80,000 to $250,000 |
| Nanny | $60,000 to $120,000 |
| Estate manager | $150,000 to $250,000 |
| Private chef | $100,000 to $300,000 |
| Chauffeur | $80,000 to $130,000 |
| Housekeeper | $90,000 to $160,000 |
Salary varies based on location, live-in or live-out arrangements, and whether the role involves travel or staff management.
The report’s chef range goes up to $300,000. The highest salary one of our California recruiters has placed a private chef at was $190,000 a year. It was a live-in role, and the chef had cooked for celebrity clients before.
If you’re in the UK, the same report has UK salaries for every role.
How do I get started if I have zero experience?
If you have no experience, you usually need to start just outside private homes, in a hotel, a restaurant or on a yacht, or helping an ordinary family a few days a week.
56% of our job ads ask for a minimum amount of experience, and 98% of those want three years or more. The other 44% don’t have a minimum but experience is critical in household staffing.
Everyone in this sector started somewhere. Laurine Mallet, one of Morgan & Mallet’s co-founders, began her own career as a nanny in London.
Morgan Richez, the other co-founder, arrived in the UK washing cars before moving into chauffeur and driver-butler roles.
Neither came from a background in private service. Both built their experience one step at a time.
The path into private households usually starts outside them. Here is where to begin, depending on your role:
Private chefs and cooks
Start by responding to classified ads placed by ordinary families looking for a cook a few days a week.
This kind of work builds your confidence cooking in someone else’s kitchen, managing their preferences, and working quietly in a private home.
From there, move toward families with higher expectations. Each role should be a step up from the last.
Once you have two or three years of references from private households, you are in a strong position to approach an agency.
Housekeepers
A five-star hotel is the best training ground for a housekeeper who wants to work in private service.
The standards are directly comparable. HNW and UHNW households expect the same level of presentation, the same attention to fine materials, and the same quiet professionalism you find in luxury hospitality.
Two or three years in a high-end hotel, particularly in housekeeping or front-of-house, gives you a foundation that private employers recognize immediately.
Nannies and household assistants
Start with families who need part-time help and are willing to work with someone who is earlier in their career as a nanny.
Build a track record of reliability, discretion, and warmth. Qualifications in childcare or early years education help, but Laurine Mallet has always said that attitude matters more than credentials.
A candidate who shows up on time, takes direction well, and keeps their employer’s life private will move up faster than one with certificates but poor judgment.
Butlers
Most butlers start off working in hotels or restaurants. As Morgan, our co-founder, says:
“Usually they work in the hotel industry or restaurant industry as a [maître d’hôtel]… After, they would like to become [a] butler because you can get better money as well.”
Chauffeurs
For chauffeurs, Morgan says it’s often about who you meet:
“It’s not easy to come [into the] private industry. The best thing is to meet people.
“For example, you can drive someone very wealthy or famous… and you say, ‘By the way, if you’re looking for a [chauffeur], this is my contact.’ Sometime[s] it works like that.”
Personal assistants and house managers
Personal assistants and house managers often find their next job through people they’ve worked with, and through LinkedIn. Laurine explains how it happens:
“Maybe one day the butler from the previous property works for an individual, and this individual needs a house manager, and the butler is going to think about his previous colleague.”
In all roles, the advice is the same. Start where you can, do the work well, collect references, and move up gradually.
The households at the top of this market are looking for people who have already proven themselves at a level just below.
Runet van Heerden, one of our former recruiters, started out on yachts in Palma, walking the docks to hand out her CV. Her advice now:
“Focus on building your reputation early. This industry is very relationship driven and your name carries weight… Everybody starts at the bottom. Just work yourself up.”
How to get hired by a wealthy family or VIP
1. Work with a specialist recruitment agency
Working with a specialist agency is the most direct route into private service. Morgan & Mallet has a global network of high-profile clients looking for skilled, trusted staff.
It’s free for candidates to work with us. As Morgan says:
“We serve the clients and we serve the candidate as well. Even if… they do not pay anything… this is free. But for us, we consider the candidate like a client. We follow them, we advise them as well.”
You will find competition in the industry. Our job ads get 47 applications each on average, and for every 100 applications, roughly 2 or 3 candidates come through our process.
Some roles are much more competitive than others:
| Role | Applications per job ad |
|---|---|
| Personal assistant | 106 |
| Chauffeur | 106 |
| House or estate manager | 78 |
| Butler | 48 |
| Private chef | 47 |
| Nanny or governess | 34 |
| Housekeeper | 33 |
| Domestic couple | 29 |
Source: applications to our private household job ads, April 2022 to June 2026. How we count.
2. Keep one resume that tells your whole story
Your resume needs to show the qualities private employers look for: discretion, flexibility, and a high standard of work.
Keep to one resume. Laurine once had a candidate ask which of his resumes to send her:
“I said, ‘But you’ve got just one resume.’ [He said,] ‘No, actually I’ve got a resume as a driver, I’ve got a resume as a butler.’
“And I said, ‘But actually you’ve got just one life, so one resume. The resume is your life, so you need to explain what you did during all your background.’”
Don’t put your previous employers’ names on your resume. As Laurine tells candidates, “You shouldn’t write the name of your previous employer.”
3. Prepare for a thorough interview process
Expect several interviews and thorough background checks. High-profile employers need to be certain they can trust you completely.
Be ready to talk through past roles, how you handled sensitive information, and situations where things did not go to plan. Attitude and discretion matter more than technical skills.
Morgan likes to give candidates a situation and see how they deal with it:
“Your employer is very hungry because he [had] a very bad day. He come[s] back home and he’s not happy about your table service. How [are] you going to react? What [are] you going to say to the employer?
“I think it’s very important to stay calm… Try to understand your employer, why he’s so upset about this, and not to get angry like him.
“There is no perfect answer… I really want to see if you are clever or not about the situation.”
4. Be prepared for a trial period
You can expect to do a trial period before a long-term contract is offered. It gives both sides a chance to see whether the role is a good fit.
Rachel Dixon, one of Morgan & Mallet’s recruiters, always advises families hiring a private chef to start with a trial, so they can see how the chef works in their home and with the family.
If you’re a chef, expect one.
During the first three months, we contact both the candidate and the family every 10 days.
The goal is to catch any small issues early, before they become bigger ones.
What to include in your work contract
Once you have the role, make sure your contract is clear on duties and pay before you start.
Check that the hours match the work. Laurine mentions this example:
“Let’s say I am a housekeeper. There is a property [of] 500 square meters [about 5,400 square feet]. I am alone to clean the property.
“If the employer say[s], ‘You’ve got 15 hours a week’… I know this is not a good job, because [for] 500 square meters you need a full-time job. So you need to make sure the duties match with the schedules.”
Your contract should make it clear exactly what the job involves, your hours, overtime and any on-call time.
For live-in roles, confirm what accommodation is included and how expenses like meals and travel get covered.
Most contracts in this sector include a confidentiality agreement. It protects the employer’s private life and keeps sensitive information secure.
Start your career with Morgan & Mallet
Private service rewards people who have done the work, kept quiet about it, and can prove it.
The pay is strong, the work is varied, and no two days look the same.
Most of our jobs are in France (43%), the US (13%), the UAE (12%) and the UK (7%). In the US, our searches for candidates for our employer clients include Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and San Francisco.
You can see every open role on our job board. If you are ready to take the next step, register below and we will help you find the role that fits.
