To think 10 pounds per hour is very little to receive for cleaning?

[FakeUp]

This seems to be the standard payment as far as I am aware. The work is often physically demanding, especially if someone is cleaning two or three places every day. Let's say someone cleans two places for 30 pounds each Monday to Friday, they earn around 1200 / month (pre tax). This may have been fine in the time when women had a cleaning job to supplement their husband's salary, but now when many women are single or divorced and supporting themselves, it seems like a very small amount to survive on.

In fact, just did a quick calculation of what a newly qualified teacher earns pre hour pretending they don't do anything in the holidays and it came out as £10.13 an hour - can't help thinking they ought to earn a darn sight more than a cleaner.

I'm a Teaching Assistant which is quite a skilled job and only get £9 an hour. Cleaning requires little training or skills in comparison so I would say £10 is a good wage for one.

This will all be cash in hand - and in their back pocket s rather large top up to claiming welfare

and you know this how?

£10 an hour seems about right. It's more than minimum wage. And the hours might suit some people very well, flexible and paid for any overtime. It could also be cash in hand / untaxed.

I've had jobs where I've done 20+ extra unpaid hours per week, every week. If I divided the salary by hours I'd have been earning £10p/h or less! And for much more pressured, harder work that required expensive training (funded by myself). And left me emotionally drained. £10per hour for something flexible and with little pressure has sometimes been very appealing.

I think for unskilled labour it’s fine for most places (London / SE should be more) but if a job is particularly tough I think it would be fine for a cleaner to charge more.

No point cleaning for £10 or £12 per hour, you're self employed, there's always travel time between jobs and many hidden costs involved in running a small business.

Those type of rates do not bring you even min wage as your actual hourly wage once your business costs are deducted.

Also don't forget it's such physical graft you cannot sustain a heavy schedule for as long as a desk job and when you do flop back onto your sofa, there will be admin to do, calls to take from clients and all sorts of work to be getting on with for the next hour or two. It's not an easy option no matter how much you charge so why be cheap?

As you can tell, I used to clean and I do know a fair few professional cleaners and cleaning business owners and it's easy to charge £15 - £20 per hour as long as the service provided is good and reliable

If, and only if you do charge these kind of rates will you be able to make a proper go of it and earn a decent living at the end of each day.

You learn all this with experience, if you compare it to when you were employed at a previous job, what sounds like a lot per hour at first is actually not even worth charging, you need to cost everything out first and then decide on rates, you'll always need to charge more than you thought.

£10 per hour is a pointless amount to charge and boils down to peanuts really.

Pay differentials do matter. Why should I slog myself to death, have ridiculous amount of responsibilities for £15 an hour ? No wonder there’s a nursing shortage. Might just as well chuck it in , be a bloody cleaner, and not have any worries.
Before anyone flames me to death, I’m not putting cleaners down, but I’d love to have a job with no responsibilities or stress.

This will all be cash in hand - and in their back pocket s rather large top up to claiming welfare

Don't you know? This is what we all do, us cleaners

care assistants are on minimum wage and they have peoples wellbeing in hands. so £10 for cleaning with much responsibility is a heaven.

with much less responsibility

I agree £10 is too little. I'm a cleaner on £12 per hour, ok it's stress free, I don't bring my work home with me, but I do have clients drop me for a few weeks while they go on holiday so I have to save to cover that. I need a private pension. I need to save in case I get poorly (needed three months off a few years back)
I've been Incredibly busy this past year so I've earned some decent money which has enabled me to save to cover for the inevitable time when I'm not so busy.

I cant complain it gives me a decent income (for me)

I agree OP and the argument that other jobs are underpaid doesn't mean we should pay Cleaner's less, just other jobs more. I pay my cleaner £15 per hour and also oh a monthly fee to an agency. I know she pays tax as the agency guarantees and facilitates that.

I couldn’t do it nor would I want to. That doesn’t mean the work isn’t valuable and worth being paid properly.

The cleaners where I work are paid £10.20 on an employed basis with pension contributions and holiday and occupational sick pay etc.

I think it’s a bargain.

I don’t think the argument that midwives/social workers etc get less so they should too is valid - it’s not a race to the bottom.

I look after other people's babies and children in a nursery for 8.00 p/h. It's very physically tiring. Cleaning the toilets is a bit of a break for me from having to be constantly vigilant, managing behaviour and educating / stimulating the children. I think 10.00 is reasonable for cleaning.

I think £10 an hour to clean is a good wage. Plenty of cleaners out there on minimum wage. Plenty of others on less too and do far more physically demanding jobs.

To be honest most self employed cleaners charge more than that these days. I'm in central Scotland and I've heard £12-£15 is quite normal, I was shocked.

Qualified midwives start on £12.41 ph. They hold 2 lives in their hands as autonomous practitioners. They will have completed a level standard study, and a 3 year degree.

Do I think cleaners should be on more? No.

We should be paying midwives significantly more, not paying everyone else less.

It's not really £10/hr which is the main issue. I'd guess the average cleaner is doing a couple of hours per client. Then driving 10-15 mins to the next job. So they are losing an hour (ish) to travel each day, plus running a car, possibly paying for advertising, paying for cleaning products, hopefully paying for insurance in case they damage something in someone's home etc. With all that taken into account they are probably working for well under minimum wage.

Oh and we do have quite a big responsibility. Clients give me the keys to their valuable house, I check everything before I leave, that I've turned the iron off, that I haven't accidentally turned a switch on on the oven (it's happened) I often drive between jobs trying to remember if I locked the door or not, I've gone back to check more than once!

I don't think insisting cleaners are paid more than £10 an hour would benefit anyone. That's a very reasonable amount for a low skilled job. Insisting they get paid more will lead to them getting fewer hours/ less jobs- it won't lead to them being more affluent but exactly the opposite.

£10 an hour is very good for the work of a cleaner.

Pp who are saying that midwives/ care workers pay should be increased are right.

Well I guess it's because no qualifications are required to be a cleaner.

I absolutely hate this argument, most people who clean houses cash in hand only do a few hours a week for a few customers. My cleaner enables me to come home 1 day a week to a clean and tidy house, I love coming home when she has been. After listening to a women’s hour on R4 about how these usually lower paid helpers ( babysitting, nanny, odd job person, cleaners) enable all of the above average wage earners life to be so much easier and especially for working women . I decided that for the 3 hours my cleaner spends at my house she should get my
Hourly wage.
She was shocked when I told her what I was increasing it to (didn’t say why but just said about the R4 as she also listens to women’s hour).

I can’t say how much o appreciate her help on keeping me sane.
As for all of you shouting out about paying tax and NI stop mouthing off about a very small added income and start talking about all the giant tax avoiders Starbucks, Amazon to name a few.

Cleaning is quite physically demanding but it is not difficult.

I pay £15/ hour but she's good and provides all materials

As pp have mentioned, that is above minimum wage and is very often more than office workers, some with really a lot more responsibility than they should have for the shit amount of money! Yes, its hard to get by. But people manage to do so on less than ten quid an hour. Women do deserve more, i agree, cleaners included. Labourers do seem to be doing a lot better than womens trades.

But again there are people doing jobs with a LOT more responsibilities and technical skill sets required and getting paid less than £10 ph, in many different areas of work.

It's unskilled manual work. (Not to disrespect cleaners obviously but it doesn't require qualifications)
I have a masters degree and started in my professional career at £15 per hour.
£10ph is well above minimum wage.