'Win, Win'
"Everyone looking for a job who is accepted on the training with us, will get a job," Vestin said in a Dec. 7 e- mail. "There are a lot of people looking to hire butlers and there is a shortage of them, so for us it's a win, win situation," she said.
Butlers undergo a month-long training program that includes instruction on food and wine service and "second guessing" what their employer wants, said Watson. It costs trainees about 8,000 pounds for the live-in package.
The butler's place in English society reached its peak during the increasing affluence of the Victorian era when having a butler was "considered essential for those aspiring to gentility," according to The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant, a book written by Pamela Horn and published in 1975.
"In most families the office of butler was one which commanded respect and even awe," Horn wrote. "The aim was to provide service as quietly and efficiently as possible."
In 1911, some 800,000 British homes had servants, following World War I the numbers dropped as new career paths opened and social attitudes changed, according to Horn. By 1969, the number of male servants fell to 12,000 in the U.K., declining further over the subsequent four decades. There are now around 8,000 butlers in the U.K., Hirsch at Butler For You estimated.
The role of the modern butler is now closer to that of a personal assistant, helping organize an employer's diary, as well as offering advice on etiquette, with discretion a must, said Watson. Discretion is vital since Paul Burrell, butler to Princess Diana, revealed details of her life following her death in 1997, Watson, a former butler, said.
Greycoat Placements, also based in London, has about 20,000 people on its books today, three times more than in 2008, Salter said. Butler placements by the company grew about 20 percent this year over 2010, she said.
Demand has been driven partly because of a growing number of Chinese clients needing butlers for their second homes in London, said Laura Harrall, a director at Greycoats.
"Asia is coming up pretty strong now," Watson said. "We are getting lots of enquiries from these Chinese who are sitting on piles of money. They are discovering that if you spend $8 million on a villa with marble flooring, you need someone to come along who knows what they are doing."