£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?

About £19 per h here (NE England) some bring their own products and hoover, some don't
I think that's reasonable for a small business/self employed person. Travel, tax, NI, pension, holiday pay etc all cost.
Also cleaning bathrooms!

And that's fine. If it isn't worth it to you, then you can accept that you can't afford a cleaner and continue to do your own cleaning. That's your prerogative.

The cleaners in your area clearly believe that £15 an hour for cleaning up after other people isn't worth it to them, and that's their prerogative too.

£15-£17.50 for us in Yorkshire. Definitely do not use an agency

Your talk of pin money, putting quotation marks around the word housekeepers and calling one a CF for telling you her terms and packages was absolutely de valuing their work and was very telling about your attitude.

As I said, we pay ours £25 per hour. She does 4 hours per week at our house plus other jobs. Shes great and worth the money for someone we trust in our houses and with our children, our pets etc. it’s a shame you can’t see their value, even if you don’t personally want to pay it.

so when nurses, teachers and possibly junior lawyers take to the streets to get more pay, you are right behind them, then?

One issue with the low pay for teachers and nurses is the well-known problem of it being a "woman's job" and therefore paid less.

When data entry was a man's job, it was well paid. When it became more similar to a typist's job - women took the jobs (many learned to type at school) and BAM! the "value" of the work went down.

When the assessments were done at (i think) Birmingham, to work out pay scales and grades for refuse collectors, care workers, "dinner ladies" and cleaners everyone was fine until they realised that women would get a pay uplift. The women, who had been underpaid for years, were blamed for bankrupting the council. Nobody ever suggested that the pay scale was left the same for women and then matched the men's to that... Good on the women who started the ball rolling and the support they got to make that happen (not that i am celebrating a council declaring bankruptcy).

The demonisation of unions and collective bargaining has really done a good job in the UK.

That's the whole point of it. It's not worth it for you to pay more than 15, and for most cleaners it is not worth is to work for 15, especially when they can get a bit more. It is supply and demand. For me it is worth it. I can afford it. It takes a weight of my shoulders, I like it very clean but hate having to do it myself all the time to have a very clean home. So I pay 20 to a cleaner and I just have to do bits and pieces between her visits.

Who on earth do you think you are?

This always comes up on here. It’s kind of snobby.

I wouldn’t say cleaning is unskilled. I have a cleaner because I am bad at cleaning.

£20-£25 ph seems reasonable for a self-employed cleaner. They won’t be taking £25ph home, as they will have costs to take out of that.

Cleaning is a horrible job and should attract a decent wage. If you don’t want to pay it do your own cleaning.

@HelenaWaiting @Mintchocs
No, I have explained several times upthread that I have used cleaners for eighteen years, always paying the rate that they have requested - because it was a reasonable rate.

It’s a market-based rate. If the rate they requested wasn’t reasonable (or was indeed ludicrous!) then I wouldn’t take them on.

I suspect that I have paid far more to cleaners over the years than some of the people weighing in on this thread!

Plus I treat my cleaners fairly, flexibly and aim to give year-round income.

About £25.00 an hour here in Bristol. Admittedly Bristol is expensive across the board, but I can't imagine cleaners charge less than around £18.00 an hour in other regions.

Its not cheeky for someone self-employed to state their business terms. You can accept or not. Bet you wouldn’t be bothered if it was a male dominated field.

Some people really just want a slave,

Always behind them !

Do you think those on supermarkets , factories , councils , TAs are just salves then because they all get barely anything above minimum wage .

No I believe in paying well for a job but people like OP just want someone to clean for next to nothing

Off course cleaning in unskilled , doesn’t require a professional or skilled training .its not snobby at all to think salaries should be based on skill . nurses require years of training and they get paid less

I'm in South West Scotland and someone quoted me 30 an hour!

Rubbish very few minimum wage workers pay fuel costs etc.

But nurses are subject to agenda for change and are not self employed
Unlike a cleaner who is self employed and can set their own terms and conditions and charge what they damn well please
How hard is this to understand ?

Nurses have a set career path great pensions sick pay holiday pay and don't have to drive around to 5 different houses a day every day it's in no way a comparable job. I'd expect a self employed cleaner to be on a better hourly rate.

Mine has just gone up to this cost OP. Worth every penny I think.

But you get things like paid annual leave, sick pay and allowances for sickness and childcare issues which self employed people just don’t get.

Nurses don’t have to save up their income to give themselves paid holidays, a pension or sick leave. They don’t use their own cars and fuel to drive to multiple homes a day. They don’t use their own equipment nor do they have to put money aside to cover their taxes and NI contributions.

With £25 an hour you can do all that and still get paid more than starting nurses or paramedics .

What does that mean, that they're not part of a profession?

I know freelancers in different industries that charge £50+ an hour