Job Opportunities

In GQ magazine, David Katz writes about the increased demand for high-class assistance among the ".001 percent."

"Thirty-five years ago," he writes, "there were only a few hundred butlers left in Britain; today there are roughly 10,000, plus thousands more abroad."

Most of the demand is coming from wealthy individuals in emerging markets — from Russian oligarchs, to billionaires in Dubai, to rich Chinese. Some of these individuals may already have housekeepers or servants at home, but the desire for a butler goes beyond that.  Ex-military are drawn to the profession, and there’s been a recent influx as Britain has drawn down its deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. They can't cope with civilian life. As a butler, they get security and a place to live, and the discipline is there. Ex-soldiers make the best butlers because they come programmed to take orders and can tolerate abuse.

"When you're talking about hiring a proper British butler — the guy in the uniform who obeys a certain protocol of service — what you're hiring is essentially a status symbol," he says.

In China, he says, "they want an Anglo person that telegraphs to their other equally wealthy friends that they can afford to do this."

 In the U.S. and U.K., they may start making $40,000 a year, before quickly moving up to several hundred thousand dollars per year. But in the markets with high demand, like Dubai or parts of China, butlers can start at $60,000 — without having to work their way up to head of household.

One of  first lessons of a butler training course is this scenario: Imagine that you're serving a dinner party for your principle and you get a call from your wife or your partner that your child is sick and in hospital. What do you do? Almost everyone in the class, made of mostly people with lots of prior service experience, thought that it would be appropriate to get things in order and then get someone to cover for you. They were all chastised by the instructor. The instructor said the employer should never even know that the butler's child is sick. "Your problems are not your employers' problems," the class was told.