Is this hourly rate too high?

The average cleaner employed by a family is not a professionally skilled cleaner it's not a skilled job all adults can do it.
If you are talking about professional cleaning eg of operating theatres etc that's a different thing. Cleaning an ordinary home is unskilled labour.

As you’ll see I mentioned holiday and pension. Plus you make an assumption I work from employers premises.
If you believe it costs £70ph for all that may I suggest your running costs are too high

I pay NI from the gross income I mentioned. The employer’s contribution is separate and self employed people don’t pay NI twice either.

To summarise your view…you think your job is superior to that of the cleaner in question and your training etc makes you “above” her. Nice.

Wow. Professional cleaning is a skill. If you have ever had a cleaner that was not a professional you would know that. People think they can just 'clean' but in actual fact it is challenging physical work. My cleaner is £20 an hour, £20 - £25 is about the going rate around here, mine is £20 as she is starting out and i expect it will go up at some point, but she is really good. Your cleaner does not make £25 an hour. It is likely you will make more than her an hour when you take into account tax and overheads. Her travel will cost quite a bit also, as she is likely to travel more frequently thank you and won't reimburse. As a loose example, for a self employed person wanting to earn £25,000 per annum, their hourly rate would be £19.98 per hour, taking into account overheads, petrol, business expenses and annual leave etc. £25,000 is not even an average UK salary.

To summarise your view…you think your job is superior to that of the cleaner in question and your training etc makes you “above” her. Nice.

You can’t compare your job to hers. Your employer/clients don’t randomly decide they don’t need you when they go on holiday and therefore not pay you. She doesn’t get employer pension contributions. She won’t be working a full 40hr week. She won’t get any redundancy pay or notice period. She won’t get sick or holiday pay.

She has priced herself accordingly and you can look for someone cheaper, but you might not get the same service.

It doesn't matter whether she cleans a 3 bed terrace or 7 bed mansion. The cleaning job is exactly the same. Yes, it's above what I earn as a professional but so what. You are free to start your own cleaning business if you choose to. My SIL is a cleaner. She is a qualified physio but a cleaning job works best for her in terms of flexibility. Cleaning for others is not "unskilled", just look at the numbers of complaints about poor clean on MN.

I’m looking for a cleaner for a couple of hours weekly. I budgeted £18-20 per hour, but I’ve received a quote of £25 per hour. This is an independent cleaner, albeit with a proper set up. AIBU to think that this is a lot?

I’m in the NW in a reasonably affluent area, but it’s not London. Also, we live in a very normal family home. It’s not a job with an NDA in a mansion.

I’ve checked some local sm groups and it seems that £25 per hour is not unheard of, so I don’t think she was trying to put us off.

I understand overheads, tax etc. come out of that, so she’s not left with £25. But I can’t help thinking that I earn less than that gross in a role that took the better part of a decade to train for. It also comes with a lot more responsibility and less flexibility than a self employed cleaner has.

Is this where things are because of minimum wage increases? I’m not saying they were a bad thing, people should be able to live off their wages. But it seems that middle earners salaries have not kept up if for a low skilled job you can earn as much as a high skilled worker.

I understand that and I tried to make the comparison as close as possible by giving my hourly rate before deductions and including holiday pay and employer pension contributions.

As an employee you still have to travel to and from work which is not paid and you can’t claim petrol or your car as business expenses. Most of what you’ve listed are tax free expenses, some of which can be for personal use too. I never said she ends up with £25 cash per hour. But neither does a salaried employee. And people choose to be self employed because of the flexibility, they’re not hard done by and deserving pity. People have a choice to either be salaried or self employed and there are pros and cons in both situations.

there was a FB post on a local town site in Devon last week on this topic. Got very heated as the poster was being charged £30 ph and wondered if that was the going rate. Many people said if the cleaner was good and you are happy then pay it. Many others, including local cleaners, said £15 was more like it.

mym mum in the SE had a weekly cleaner that I paid for around 6-7 years ago. She left the property immaculate because she only did half the house (3 bed semi) in 3 hours, then the other half the following week. She told me she was putting up her prices to £20ph and I said I wouldn’t pay that. She left. We got someone else for £15ph for 2 hours a week. No, the house is not as spotless, because the new cleaner does not hoover the floor on her hands and knees with the upholstery attachment, but it’s cleaned to an acceptable standard.

cleaning is a NMW job. It’s unskilled (yes you can do it well), no qualifications, no barriers to entry, you don’t have to go to college to learn it, cost of products minimal really. I’m not sure why people think it’s NOT.

re the FB post, at £30 per hour, it works out to £47,000 pa, allowing for a 6.5hr day and 5 weeks off per year for sick/holiday. Less some expenses, £1k for insurance, mileage and products. That’s almost into the 40% tax bracket. I’m drafting my new cleaning business website as we speak.

there was a FB post on a local town site in Devon last week on this topic. Got very heated as the poster was being charged £30 ph and wondered if that was the going rate. Many people said if the cleaner was good and you are happy then pay it. Many others, including local cleaners, said £15 was more like it.

mym mum in the SE had a weekly cleaner that I paid for around 6-7 years ago. She left the property immaculate because she only did half the house (3 bed semi) in 3 hours, then the other half the following week. She told me she was putting up her prices to £20ph and I said I wouldn’t pay that. She left. We got someone else for £15ph for 2 hours a week. No, the house is not as spotless, because the new cleaner does not hoover the floor on her hands and knees with the upholstery attachment, but it’s cleaned to an acceptable standard.

cleaning is a NMW job. It’s unskilled (yes you can do it well), no qualifications, no barriers to entry, you don’t have to go to college to learn it, cost of products minimal really. I’m not sure why people think it’s NOT.

re the FB post, at £30 per hour, it works out to £47,000 pa, allowing for a 6.5hr day and 5 weeks off per year for sick/holiday. Less some expenses, £1k for insurance, mileage and products. That’s almost into the 40% tax bracket. I’m drafting my new cleaning business website as we speak.