When Adam Caller, the owner of Tutors International, posted a job listing last week for a tutor for a one-year-old, he didn’t expect it to go viral. The job pays £180,000, or $240,000, but he had advertised roles before that pay considerably more.
“What has grabbed the press’s attention here is not the amount of money, but it’s the fact that it’s a one-year-old,” he told Business Insider.
The listing, published in the Times Educational Supplement on October 17, was placed on behalf of a wealthy international family based in London. The family is seeking an experienced tutor to prepare their baby for elite schools like Eton or Harrow — and to help him become the perfect “English gentleman.”
According to the listing, the family is looking for someone who can begin “immersing the child in British culture, values, and subtleties before any cultural bias takes hold.”
It says the child’s education should include learning about old-money sports like tennis, polo, and rowing, listening to classical music, and visiting art galleries and theaters.
The family provided their older child with a private tutor from the age of five, the listing said, which the parents felt was “too late to achieve their goal, hence their search for a tutor now.”
‘People don’t like the idea that money buys privilege’
The listing was widely covered in the British media, but Caller said the fiercest critiques came from anonymous commenters in the parenting forum Mumsnet. In these forums, commenters expressed disbelief, mostly at the prospective student’s age.
But Caller’s view is simple: “It’s never too early.”
Caller said he is used to the criticism after spending more than two decades in the high-end tutoring industry. He founded Tutors International in 1999, which is based in Oxford, and now fills about 15 to 20 tutoring jobs a year for affluent clients around the world.
“I understand that people don’t like the idea that money buys privilege,” he said.
He added, “I know that what we offer is not just an elitist thing — it’s the elitist end of the elitist thing.”
Ultra-high-net-worth parents, he said, are often eager to give their child the “subtle advantages” that will set them up for a life of hunting trips, glitzy balls, and mixing in the upper echelons of British society.
Although in the first few months, “the kid will be mostly asleep and lying on its back and gargling and burbling,” Caller said the child will still be learning by example from a suitable role model.
“Somewhere between the age of one and two, he’s going to become verbal,” he said. And when he does, they want him to sound like — and have the mannerisms of — a British gentleman.
Caller said that many of his foreign clients view a Received Pronunciation accent, like the one King Charles III has, to sound more educated and worldly. “It just has more authority in business and so on,” he said.
The ideal candidate
The listing seems to have done the job. Caller said it has attracted an “outstanding application field.”
At the time of reporting, the job had received 141 applications, according to screenshots of the application page Caller sent to Business Insider. Caller said he plans to ask for references from about 10% of them, with a handful standing out as exceptional candidates.
As for the ideal candidate?
They’re well-educated, cultured, and articulate. They attended elite British schools and universities, and were raised in what the job listing describes as a “socially appropriate background.”
They are also “fit, healthy and a non-smoker — active and energetic with a love for the outdoors,” the listing stipulates.
As for the six-figure salary — nearly five times the average UK salary of about £38,000 — Caller said it’s modest by Tutors International standards. A recent role offered close to £250,000, he said.
For his billionaire and millionaire clients, he said the cost is negligible: “That’s nothing compared to what you spent to refuel your yacht. It’s nothing compared to the issues of replacing your jet or managing houses in five different countries.”
He continued, “Children are more important to a family than yachts and houses and planes and cars, and so on.”
Caller said he’d have liked to tone down the phrasing of the listing — it was a “little over the top,” he said — but the clients were adamant about the wording.
But their desire to set their baby up for success early — and to build him into a gentleman — is far from unique in the world of ultrawealthy parents.
“This is a common request,” Caller said, “and it’s global.”
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