Cleaner's pay London?

[abvgd]

My cleaner has announced an increase from £12/ hour to £15/hour. We last increased her rate two years ago from £10 to £12. She works with us 7 hours a week; I paid her through COVID and she got a few new clients through my network.

I find it quite steep, both as a 25% bump up (I don't get a double digit annual salary increase, the inflation and cost of living increases are way below this, there is no other service we use that has increased so dramatically in such a short period of time) and compared to average London pay for cleaning services. I want to be fair and competitive but this seems quite excessive.

AIBU?

Pretty much every product I buy and every service I use has gone up by somewhere between 12% and 25% recently.

This is inflation in action.

Inflation is at 3%, not12-25%! Given salaries have not increased and since furlough ended unemployment remains higher than pre pandemic, seems a lot of people are being very generous / casual with expenditure or are blowing the holiday budget on services.

If she takes cash (ie you don't think she pays tax) I think it's on the high side. I am in Zone 2 and pay £12/hour. When looking for a new cleaner in September most I contacted were asking £12/£13/hour.

£15 per hour seems reasonable in London. Yes, you could probably get someone cheaper, but how do you know they're not sleeping 10 to a room or living in someone's shed? Minimum wage doesn't go far when housing costs are sky-high.

If you can afford it you should pay it. 15 quid an hour for someone to do work you don't want to do is a good contribution to the economy. And when you say 'announced' let's be honest, good on her for having the balls. It's really easy for us to make people that work for us feel uncomfortable. Be generous, it makes everyone much happier.

I’m in London.
£14 an hour.
My products.

We were paying our London cleaner £12/hr when we moved away in 2014.

Thank you all for your responses which overall gave a fairly balanced picture. It helped us to arrive at a good solution for both of us.

I'm SE and we only pay £10 ph + she brings her own products. This thread has inspired me to offer her a rise, didn't realise the going rate was £12-15.

I’m in Berkshire and my cleaners rates went up to £16 about 5 years ago. I then chose to do my own cleaning.

We live in Greater London and it's £15 ph. With inflation and the price of food ect going up it's more than justified at that rate. If you can't pay people properly do it yourself OP

I am in London and we pay £12 to the cleaner and then we pay the agency separately. However post brexit there is such a lack of reliable people that it's become more hassle to have a cleaner than not having one so i've given up (I had someone really good last year but they returned to their home country and they have been impossible to replace). I'd pay more for someone that turns up and does the job but I suspect prices are going to go up a lot more and finding reliable people is going to get harder and harder.

hi everyone, we lost our lovely cleaner after a few years, as she has now returned home. We used to pay her £15 per cash, but a new one last week said the rate is £17ph - I agreed, but it seems a little steep. Do you think that is a fair rate or too high?

@MrsMiggins9100 can you get anyone cheaper? I know a few people whose cleaners returned home when Covid hit and have never returned.

£15 is the going rate. A good cleaner is worth their weight in gold.

I'm in London and the average is 15

many t hanks RedWingBoots and SpillTheTea. I thought it was slightly higher and that £15 the rate, but it is hard to get a good cleaner so will keep her! Will see how she turns out.

If you can afford a cleaner you can afford an increase in her pay

Are you having a fucking laugh? I live in Cornwall and friends charge £15-20 an hour cleaning.

London here & my cleaner is £12.50

£15 in the NE. I used to pay £20 p.h. in London 20 years ago.

We pay ours £20 / hour
Outskirts of London

I am surprised at the rudeness of some replies. I came on here to get away from the toxicity of twitter, but I see some still cannot refrain from swearing and attacking a simple question. Most people seem to pay above the going rate as do I, and am happy with that. I won't ask again

That's cheap, especially for London.