£22 per hour for cleaning - REALLY?!

Because cleaning work is

• unskilled. Anyone can do it.
• requires no qualifications, regulations etc

A "professional" is someone working in a professional occupation, something requiring qualifications etc - Solicitors, chartered accountants, bothered chartered occupations, engineers, nurses, doctors, teachers etc

If you want a cleaner, then be prepared to pay a decent rate, it's a luxury not a necessity. So many people seem to think that cleaning is below them and then therefore so should the pay.

I’m a dental hygienist with 20 years experience. I went to uni for 3 years to qualify. I have to pay almost £500 a year indemnity insurance in case I’m sued. I’m self employed so have to pay my own pension/holidays/sick pay. I’m on £32 an hour. I think I need to change professions seriously. I started on £30 an hour 20 years ago but wages in my area have hardly gone up. I seriously might start looking at being a cleaner if I could be looking at £25 an hour.

Edited to add, I also need to pay a few hundred a year to keep up on CPD as well as paying for my own instruments and uniform etc.

Ive been surprised teens aren't seeing a gap in the market here and offering to clean neighbours houses after school for less. That's already what's happened with babysitting where I live. We all use 15 year olds who charge £8 because older adults all wanted £15

Why exactly is it ludicrous?

We had a cleaner who increased her rate from £15 to £22. That tipped it from a ‘nice to have’ to a ‘luxury’ service. We no longer have a cleaner sadly.

My cleaner is charging £20 per hour for new clients.

I don’t understand why you think they are not professional? My cleaner is incredible. The work she does in 2 hours would take me at least 6! I think that is a skill. Also, she is a professional as she gets paid for it.

I have also had a pretty useless cleaner who just did a surface level job every week. She was also professional, technically, as I paid her but she was not skilled. We only kept her as we knew she was moving after a couple of months.

Anyway, my cleaner is £23/ hour. Not in SE, but in part of Scotland comparable price-wise to SE.

Yes I’m in SW London we pay £20ph directly to our cleaner (no agency). The cost of everything has gone up hugely the last few years and she has the same expenses we do and put her prices up accordingly.

Mine wanted 22 an hour so I decided I could manage without and I have

Its been fine

It's all about supply and demand isn't it. If people will pay that much (and clearly they will, judging by all the booked up cleaners around here), why wouldn't they charge a decent rate

Agree in a way. Quite happy to pay that rate if I can find a cleaner who can show me their liability insurance and will take bank account payment. Round here they all take cash. I know MN will scream it’s a legitimate form of payment and of course they are paying their taxes.

Back in the real world I’m not paying £20 an hour to someone who doesn’t declare it. I have an agency that comes once in a blue moon for a deep clean. Expensive but they are very good, provide an invoice, have liability insurance and accept bank transfers as payment.

People getting bent out of shape because I pointed out that even minimum wage workers have to pay their NI and Tax!
Yes, cleaners are self employed and don’t have the benefits of holidays etc they also have the benefit of flexibility, and they absolutely do no pay the employer rate of NI… who ever suggested that.

All the above is entirely irrelevant as it has no bearing on what cleaners charge. If it did, Deliveroo workers and others would be much better compensated. It’s all entirely driven by demand - and as I said in my post, cleaners are in high demand currently.

Yes. Agree. Mine is not that much, but some of her clients are more rural and she can spend a decent amount of time travelling between them. So the rate isn’t actually a rate of what she’s getting all day. Just while she’s there.

Id want a reasonable amount to clean someone's home to people are disgusting

minimum wage workers have an employer paying into a pension scheme, have paid holidays and presumably don’t need any liability insurance.

Which are additional on-costs paid by employer on top of the salary

Minimum wage workers don’t have to pay extra pension that their employers contribute, they don’t have fuel costs, nor the additional wear and tear of travelling between temporary work sites and if they do they have to be compensated, they don’t have materials costs, they don’t have the additional admin hours they need to work to run the business.

Quoted £25 per hour recently, small firm, I had to supply all products, not very fancy part of the country.

Not getting a cleaner (sadly)

Having a cleaner is a luxury. What do you think they should charge?

Yup. They deserve to earn a decent wage too

mine is £20 per hour

So do minimum wage workers. We all have to pay or tax and NI. Their extra costs are insurance and (possibly) cleaning supplies.

OP - the going rate will always be what people are prepared to pay. Cleaners are in high demand, same as lots of trade workers. It’s expensive at the moment.

It is ludicrous, but be prepared for people to come along and tell you that these are ‘professional’ cleaners.

I don't think its a million miles away from normal. Petrol, insurance and cleaning products are expensive