£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?

Where did I say that all are? I'm drawing on the example of the benefits of those who are on PAYE. You can give examples of those not on PAYE if you want to.

Well, I'm not advocating for scrimping on cleaners' wages, but it's mostly something wanted by the time poor, not the cash poor.

And like anything, the quality of an individual's intellectual skills will vary, even if the physical skills and knowledge will vary.

But the market is quite oversimplified tbh. An excellent cleaner will have full books, work off referrals and probably advertise little. Whilst most who advertise will advertise at the local rate then struggle to retain clients. It can be very hard to get the former, if you can afford it. Your best luck is getting one of the latter who hasn't got the experience/rep to become one of the latter yet.

(I worked as a voluntary cleaner in an animal shelter, and have a cleaner myself these days. I was taught the cleaning skills needed in two sessions max.)

🙄

I pay my cleaner by bank transfer.

Minimum wage workers get holiday pay and usually sick pay… self employed don’t so things like that are also factored in to price

You can require your cleaner to be regulated and certified.

You just want the tax payer via UC to pay for your cleaning.

By that logic, you want the taxpayer to subsidise your shopping, because many supermarket workers are in minimum wage!

AI is never going to clean our houses but those over paid so important professions reading spreads sheets and having important meetings, well that's another matter. During Covid cleaning saved more lives than any 'profession' including the medical profession.

Issue is that there's not that many very good cleaners.I had one and she was great but since she moved the 5 after that weren't really very good. One set gave a swish round with broom and mop and left house after 35 mins rather than the hour. That's just a pisstake

How much do you think they should charge? I'd say that's very reasonable.

"By that logic, you want the taxpayer to subsidise your shopping, because many supermarket workers are in minimum wage!"

I've not come on here complaining about paying the going rate.

Ok fine but those who earn less than the cleaners won't think it's good value. Take carers through agencies for example

I wouldn't do it for less than £20 an hour, I have a mortgage and bills to pay - I can't live on 'pin money'.

If you do three 2 hour slots a day with travel in between you're only making £120 and out of that you're paying for products, equipment, petrol, gloves, tax, insurance, sick pay and holiday pay. Plus spending time on your marketing and business admin.

It's not a huge amount of money.

@DorotheaShotterya proper cleaner should come to your house and see exactly what you want done. Then, should give you a price for the whole job - forget an hourly rate. The first clean is always more expensive to get it to a standard, then going forward you pay less for a standard clean either weekly or fortnightly.
They are providing a service, please don't try to knock the price down. You wouldn't do that to a plumber 🪠

Most folk don't realise how dirty their house is 🤷🏻

Agreed but everyone has to cut their coat depending on their cloth.

There are professional cleaners. Dont be rude...what do you do love? 😘

I am currently struggling to find a good cleaner. I was someone reliable, who can work fast with good communication skills with common sense. I would pay £22 / hr for that.

What I'm not paying £22 for someone to not turn up, flit around plumping cushions but not changing sheets, to be on their phone at the same time or not speak a word of English (no I'm not writing everything down that I want doing so you can Google translate it, I don't have time).

All the above, and more, have happened on recent trials.

I think people think oh the going rate is X whether they have any skills or not.

The cleaners in my job are superb and as commonly said, they're the very first people you would notice hadn't turned up. They deserve to be paid more and home cleaners are no different.

Yes but the over paid spreadsheet readers won’t be able to afford the overpriced life saving cleaners if they’re all replaced with AI

Mine is £23 p/h
commuter town east anglia area
is the going rate / slightly on the lower side

But how much are they actually going to earn per week/oer year? Not many will get a regular 40 hours a week work will they? And clients drop them without notice so that's a loss to carry until they manage to replace them

There is a shortage of cleaners in my area, there's always people looking and most good cleaners have either none or very few slots.

I think it's because of Air B and B as well, we are in a touristy area and many people simply don't want to do the changes/bedding/clean up after holidaymakers.

I once worked as a chambermaid, the beds were killers, I lasted about a week!

Also, being a cleaner has a low bar to entry, most people could do the skill even if they don't have the stamina, but it also has a low bar to exit. If you don't pay enough, cleaners leave, move on, get other clients, find other jobs they prefer more.

That's what you are paying for, very few people do 40 hour weeks and there is no career progression, so you are essentially paying £20 for an hour of their time.

If you think this is an hour in which you can do your own cleaning instead, you are not obliged to pay!

Self employed so need for cover pension tax and ni plus holidays

as well as pli - equipment - travelling time

cleaning is actually quite hard physical work and doing it 6/9hrs a day is tiring

there will be cheaper ones but it’s not a terrible wage /cost

If I employ someone in my own business and offer them £15/h it costs me about £21/h as an employer by the time I factor in pension, holiday pay, tax etc. (I don’t run a cleaning business)
Cleaners may also have costs like travel, insurance, supplies, parking on top of that rate. Why does this seem too much to you?