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.

My son goes out to work st midnight till 4-30 am for min wage
I hate him having to do that but the only job he can get at the moment
I’d be delighted if he could get a £10 ph cleaning job...in daylight hours

Do you really not mind your cleaner deciding on what cleaning products are used in your home?!

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

Are you speaking as a cleaner? Or someone who has had to live on and/or support a family on the wages of a cleaner?

I earn £12/hr (before tax/ni/pension etc) for a skilled job that i did 5 years training for. I recently heard of a physio charging £100/hr saying they barely made anything after expenses!!

It's not really worth doing anything self employed for £10 per hour especially something like cleaning with travel time involved, it's less than min wage after your costs and is in no sense comparable to an 'employed rate' of £10 per hour in any capacity.

Any cleaners who is on or around min wage will be actually employed by a company and have all their employee benefits. Self employed people do not and need to charge a viable business rate. £10 or £12 per hour just won't cut it.

Rates are market driven in any case and thankfully, most clients realise and value a good cleaner/cleaning service enough to pay their rates and make it a worthwhile venture for them if they have the energy and drive for it. It's certainly not the easiest thing I've ever done and no way would I have ever done it for less than £15 per hour. it just wouldn't make any sense.

That's more than I got doing full time in retail with London weighting, as a manager. If you're earning 28k you're also out earning my current office job, by about 3k, too!

@Dogswalks2 brought a tear to my eye with her kindness in that post.

I have been a cleaner for years and hate being treated like a lower class citizen by plenty of customers and for hardly any money.

I've taken on a lower paid job but with more hours and therefore better earnings and I cannot wait to get away from the attitude a lot of people have, as reflected by a lot of pp on this thread.

I live in the SE ..i cant affird a cleaner but i think they get £12-15 /hour. My dad pays more than £12.

I get paid less than that on a zero hours contract - teaching online. You need to be qualified, to have teaching experience and to provide your own equipment, heating, etc. And you pay tax on it. There is no guarantee of work.

It’s ridiculous to compare an hourly wage for a self-employed person working one or two hours at a time and then having to travel to another job, with the wage for an employed person who’s working for an 8 hour shift, who gets holiday pay, sick pay, NI and pension contributions.

Employed office cleaners are a more reasonable comparison with TA’s and nurses, but I don’t think many of them are on twelve to fifteen quid an hour.

I think most hourly self-employed cleaners in my area get a decent but not extortionate rate all things considered. The women who really are getting screwed are the agency care workers who have far more responsibility and stress and the worst of all possible worlds.

Why are people fixating on the £10/hr and comparing it to office workers etc? It cannot be compared. An office worker on £10/hr is commuting to a single place of work and any materials and insurance required are paid for by their employer. A self employed cleaner is earning £10/hr but is taking he considerably less than that after travel between jobs (time and fuel), cleaning equipment and insurance are taken into consideration.

Cleaners are largely self employed, it’s really not comparable to a job you are employed in.

You have the business running costs to take into account, it’s not like they’re getting that whole £10. It’s probably a lot less than minimum wage once costs have been taken out and all the time running the business is added in.

Seriously the ignorance shown by comparing to salaried staff who will be receiving pension contributions, maternity pay, sick pay etc is a bit painful. It’s just not comparable.

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

Yawn.

More drivel from you.

Funnily enough the comparison with online tutors occurred to me just before you posted, because when I’ve gone through an agency the actual tutor can’t be getting any more than my cleaner. I guess what drives rates down is the competition factor: it can be done from anywhere with decent broadband, including some very cheap housing areas and can be done from home while babysitting. So it’s good for pin money, but must be very tough to make a living at.

I think its low too especially when a lot of travel required between jobs. Its really hard work and must be hard to live on plus no pension, holiday pay, sick pay, clients cancelling at last minute.

I don't think that because nurses or teachers don't get much more negates the fact that £10 an hour is pretty crap. Yes, it's not highly skilled work, but still. And yes, teachers and care workers/nurses definitely should be on a whole lot more too. (and I bet if they weren't female dominated professions, they would be).

Here’s the thing. For a tenner/hour I can afford to pay someone to clean my house. If I had to pay maybe £15 then I’d probably start cleaning myself.

Unfortunately, that’s how it works. If the average person feels they can’t afford a cleaner anymore, then cleaners will find themselves out of a job unless they drop their fee.

@Brandaris that's so true.

I've not come across people in RL thinking that a person selling a service should charge it out at the same or less as their own employed rates with all their state benefits and protections thrown into their cushy employee package. Most clients I had realised it was a rate for the service as a whole and not just 'my wages'. I did have a fair few clients who were in business themselves so i think that helped them to realise.

Self-employed people have to take full liability for the services they offer and need to cost in not only the fact they have no employee package, (hol pay, pension etc) but their business costs and insurances too plus time spent working on the business and not just in it.

Also you might be insured for damage you cause but you'll definitely pay an excess of a minimum of £100 for any damage claims made against you which considering your job is to touch most of the items in someone's house, can occur at a higher rate than you anticipated when you work a full schedule.

I honestly do not know how anyone affords to do it for just £10 per hour and the ones that try it don't seem to last very long, they either learn the hard way and raise their rates or just give it up as a bad idea.

I'm a nurse and studied for years to get my qualifications. I get £12 per hour. I think for a generally unskilled profession such as cleaning, £10 per hour is very reasonable.

Its more than NMW and requires very little skill. I can think of much harder jobs that are paid less.

There are many people earning less and paying tax, NI etc from it, so not bad for unskilled work.

Taking the OP's example, this person is probably doing a cleaning job around school hours, and will need time off during school holidays. So they are unlikely to make £1,200 every month throughout the year. Therefore they probably won't even hit the £12,500 threshold for paying tax anyway. Even if they do earn over that, as others have pointed out, they will have allowable expenses that they can deduct.

Incidentally it is rather insulting to assume that everyone paid in cash will be committing fraud and tax evasion.

Domestic cleaning really isn’t physically demanding. If they don’t like the pay and feel it’s not fair recompense for their time and effort they always have the opportunity to take a risk and work harder to earn more money either by gaining qualifications and starting a business. No one forced people to become cleaners.

I agree with Mango - it’s all about supply and demand. I pay my cleaner £70 for 6 hours. I supply the cleaning products. The thing is that I really can’t afford to spend more on cleaning - so if she raises her hourly rate then I will have to cut her hours and do more myself. (Btw, I am not lazy - just a very busy working lone parent.)

My cleaning lady charges £12 p/h, she is lovely, her daughter plays with my daughter whilst she is at the house, she does a good job and most importantly I trust her. It may not be a highly skilled job, but it isn’t easy. I would happily pay up to £15p/h if she put her prices up. (Not sure I could afford more)