finding a nanny or babysitter in London

For those of you who have a nanny or babysitter or mother's helper in London, how did you go about finding them?  We're moving over in about a month with our 8.5 month old daughter and my husband is starting to get very stressed out about finding help because he's insistent that we'll need it asap so I can be freed up to take care of move-related issues.

He's moving this week ahead of us so he can meet potential candidates before I arrive but I don't really know how to find them.  His company has given us the name of an agency but here in NY I don't know anyone that's used an agency.  Is it a common thing in the UK?  We found our current nanny by recommendation on a huge Yahoo group for parents in our area.  We'll likely be living in North London but I won't know for sure until we secure housing in a few weeks.  Any pointers would be appreciated.  Thanks!!

I was the personal assistant once to someone who hired his nanny's only through agencies. He tried using Gumtree once and it was a disaster. So yes, Agencies are much more popular here.

Do you want one? If you don't need one urgently you will end up finding one once you've settled. Agencies are common, but I'd steer away from au pairs if you are a first timer.

Try joining the Netmums website?

Thanks for the responses.  I'll definitely get in touch with the agency -- not sure why it's considered a sketchy method here, but if it's reputable in the UK then I'd much rather have them do some of the legwork.  I know DH's company wouldn't give us a subpar agency so hopefully they'll be of some help.

And I'll look into netmums as well.

I had a wonderful experience with childrcare.co.uk when we had to find someone to look after my 7 and 8 year old niece and nephew last year during our wedding. We found a fantastic local woman for a good price who had all the appropriate paperwork and the kids loved her.