£22 per hour for cleaning - REALLY?!

[DorotheaShottery]

I was thinking the other day "Dot - you've had enough of this cleaning lark - get yourself a cleaner!"

I put some feelers out on FB and it appears the going rate is £20-£22 per hour!!

Is that normal in the not-SE-not-Cheshire parts of the UK? AIBU to think it's ridiculous?

Just out if interest which job roles do you think deserve to earn minimum wage if not cleaning which is an unskilled job?

We pay £24 an hour for ours and they are amazing! Worth every penny to not have to do all the bathrooms every week!

LOVE this.

Good cleaners are GOLD.

Well, Dot, you better get on and do your own cleaning if you don't want to pay the price.

It doesnt matter wether they are unskilled
They are self employed and can therefor set their own rates of pay
It really is that simple.

Unless you have disability no one needs a cleaner, you want one which instantly makes it a different payment structure. You want personable, trustworthy, good time keeping, this adds up
. Anyone thinking we'll I'm a professional and I get about the same an hour has made their desicion to go into a "safe" profession which comes with stress and possible uni fees, but you knew that, you didn't think you would suddenly get more than any other person in your field? Self employed people , deal constantly with customers face to face, not hiding behind endless emails, 3/4 clients a day means you have 3/4 different methods, travel and no HR, alone with clients you don't know. You can have a first day on the job every day sometimes which is stressful and never boring. A plumber can come out and press a button and it's £200, your paying for what they offer cause you can't/won't. It's totally different set up than sitting in an office everything about you maintained and paid for by your company, no compassionate leave, at the whim of others need for you, can be dropped cause they have mislaid a fiver and blaming you. As previous poster says they pay £30 for a gardener, mowing a lawn, digging up weeds don't imagine all of them have been to uni?
It's probably a little bit of why should I pay when I could do it myself, or I don't get paid for doing it why should they? attitude I think from some pretty delusional folk who expect a woman to clean for buttons , rather than understand that woman is leaving her family to clean up after yours, cause you seeked her out.
Time travelling between jobs , listening/dealing with awkward clients , grudgingly paying days after job done, it's not for the faint hearted!

https://www.wecasa.co.uk/domestic-cleaning/articles/how-much-do-cleaners-charge-per-hour-in-the-uk

I’m south east and been quoted £18 an hour which I thought was quite reasonable and will be paying once I’m back to work.

lol at people who can afford a cleaner but complaining about paying the cleaner a decent amount so they can earn a decent wage.

Agree with this

She wasn't a "cheeky fucker". She was telling you what is covered by her standard clean.

£20 ph and worth every penny

Mine are 22ph and their assistance is invaluable.
I don't have a lot of spare time, and I don't want to spend what spare time i have cleaning.
If you want a service, you pay for it.

I would have no issue paying £20 an hour for a cleaner, if I could find a decent one.

I have had to say goodbye to 4 cleaners in the last 12 months.

One didn’t do a bad job but wanted to text me on the morning of the day she was coming to tell what what time SHE would arrive. Could have been anytime between 8.30 am and 4pm.

Another one booked. First visit on time and an average clean. Following week didn’t turn up at all (text me the following day - poorly child). Following week I needed to leave to get to the dentist and agreed what time she would be there. She was late, so I had to leave to get to the dentist. She then expected to be paid. She was 40 minutes late!

The next one was more interested in making bows out of my towels and doing silly stamps on my toilet roll. She then put photos of my house on Instagram without my permission.

The last one was an absolute lunatic. Cleaning was a shocking standard and she spent 20 minutes stood outside my house on the phone screeching at someone, whilst I was in a meeting with a Director. I had to mute myself and text her to shut up.

There have got to be some good, reliable cleaners out there, but I’ve yet to find one.

2 years ago I got paid £12 and hour by an agency and most of the jobs required a 20 minute drive each way got 2 hours. Total bullshit

Looking forward to hearing how long your cleaner lasts, and how much you decide they are worth paying

I wouldn't pay more than £15 ph which is a couple of quid over NLW. So I'll carry on doing my own cleaning - I've managed for several decades 😊

Minimum wage workers definitely have fuel costs. If they drive to their workplace they need fuel.

This is very true. In a 35 hour working week, a cleaner will have several hours where they're not actually earning - travelling between jobs, buying supplies, admin. In addition to not getting paid when they are on holiday or sick.

Yes. Plus VAT.

If for example the cleaner charges £20 an hour and between 9-5 manages 3 x 2 hour jobs works 5 days a week and doesn't work 6 weeks a year (combination of holidays and sick) they then generate a gross profit of £20 x 30 x 46 in a year total 27600, this is gross profit not net income from this we minus expenses providing cleaning materials not just bleach and spray but mops buckets etc in some cases maybe a vacuum cleaner extending brushes for dusting picture rails curtain poles. Liability insurance and business insurance on their car as it is more than just commuting this will easily reduce( net profit gross income) to somewhere close to 25k per year. On which they pay tax NI and fund a pension like anyone else. Also for this they have no employers pension contribution or any sick pay and still have to do own admin and tax returns chase debts etc so averaged over the full year it is barely more than minimum wage. £20 an hour with costs and covering there own holis and sick pay and doing own admin works out at 25,000 /52/35=£13.73 per hour, so they need to charge £20 an hour to end up with £13.73 before tax

If I paid my teenage daughter to clean my house would be like something from the before scenes in how clean is your house

reaches for Mumsnet bingo card 🙄

Some years ago I made an AIBU post saying that I was shocked that people were not arranging to pay their cleaners during holiday periods.

The cleaner in question was a young EU woman of about 25 (so no family members nearby) and had come to me saying that she was desperately short of money because people were going away during the summer and cancelling their sessions.

This was in a rapidly gentrifying area of inner London, stuffed with finance and IT professionals, where houses were changing hands for £700k plus. So frankly I thought this was pretty poor form of her other clients.

I therefore had her in to do some extra cleaning and also some gardening work, that didn’t particularly need doing, but I wanted to help her out. We could afford it, but it did feel a bit rum to be effectively subsiding other couples to save on their cleaning bills…

For our own part I would always arrange to have her come in and do her usual hours while we were away.

I posted about this on MN AIBU and was told that I was an idiot for feeling sorry for her and giving her the extra work, that no one with any brain should think twice about cancelling cleaning sessions to save money while on holiday, that she should be an independent self-sustaining person and their cleaner probably did better financially than they did themselves…

So which is it Mumsnet? Are cleaners under-paid exploited female labour (as has been suggested on this thread) or high earning professionals who need to deliver a perfect finish every time but can also be cancelled at will, like any other service?

Or is there a case for something in the middle where a reasonable rate is paid but care is taken to give continuity of income, flexibility according to their timetable and tolerance for not being entirely perfect in an imperfect world? That to me seems to be the best approach for a long term relationship.

So whats the point of your thread then?

Ok what about other self employed people that are scraping minimum wage BEFORE making extra pension contributions?