Questions people ask before they hire a commercial cleaner

Question 1

How much does commercial cleaning cost per hour in London, and what is a fair rate?

Accepted Answer

Our guide ranges are on the pricing page, plus VAT, and every job is then priced from a written specification, because the hours, the frequency and who supplies the consumables move the price more than the postcode does. The figures people quote to each other are public too. In a 2025 thread on Cleantalk, the UK cleaning trade forum, contractors put commercial rates at £20 to £30 an hour nationally and £25 to £40 in London and the South East. One London contractor, Crystal Services, publishes £19.00 an hour labour-only or £20.50 supplied, plus VAT, with a 10-hour weekly minimum. Job adverts for London cleaners seen in September 2026 pay £13 to £15.50 an hour. Add employer National Insurance, holiday pay, pension, insurance, materials, supervision and travel to that wage, and a quote much under £20 an hour is buying fewer hours than it promises. Ask for the hours behind any price.

Question 2

How is office cleaning priced: per hour, per square metre, per visit or per month, and what is included?

Accepted Answer

Four bases are in use. Hourly suits small offices and light schedules. Per square metre suits large floorplates cleaned daily, though quotes on that basis vary so much that tradespeople answering a MyJobQuote question in April 2026 gave anything from £0.10 to £5 per square metre depending on frequency. Per visit and per month are what most small offices end up with, because they are easy to budget and to compare. Whatever the basis, the price is built the same way underneath: cleaners, times hours, times rate, plus chemicals, equipment and margin. Standard inclusions are vacuuming, mopping, touch points, bins, washrooms and the kitchen. Washroom consumables such as paper, soap and bin liners are usually extra, either at cost plus a handling fee or supplied by you. Get that split in writing, because it is where surprise invoices come from.

Question 3

If I switch cleaning company, do the existing cleaners transfer under TUPE?

Accepted Answer

Usually, yes. Replacing one contractor with another for the same work at the same site is a service provision change under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006. The cleaners assigned to your site move to the new contractor on their existing pay and terms. You do not employ them, but the transfer cannot be contracted out of, and a bidder who says they will simply recruit fresh staff is giving the advice an employment lawyer on UK Business Forums called "quite simply terrible". The outgoing contractor must pass employee liability information to the incoming one at least 28 days before the transfer, so tell your current contractor early. Staff who split their time across several sites may fall outside it, which needs a legal view. Expect a serious contractor to raise TUPE at the quote stage, ask for the staff list and price accordingly.

Question 4

What should a cleaning contract and specification include, and how do I compare quotes fairly?

Accepted Answer

A specification is the room-by-room list of what is cleaned, how often and to what standard. The contract wraps it in the commercial terms. When a member posted a draft cleaning contract on UK Business Forums for review, the gaps flagged were the usual ones: no frequency schedule, no complaints procedure, no remedy for missed work and no notice period. A usable contract has an area-by-area task list, a frequency table split into daily, weekly and periodic, who supplies materials and consumables, access hours and key holding, how the work is inspected, price review rules, notice terms and insurance details. To compare quotes, send every bidder the same specification and ask each for the weekly labour hours behind the price. Two prices for one specification with different hours are not the same service. The cheaper one has already decided which tasks to drop.

Question 5

How long is the contract, what notice do I need to give, and can I get out?

Accepted Answer

Whatever you signed, so read it before you sign. A pub owner on UK Business Forums found a 12-month term that could only be ended on its anniversary, three months' notice, a demand for 13 months' payment on exit, and subcontractors he had never vetted holding his keys. Look for four things: the initial term, the notice period, whether the agreement renews automatically and on what terms, and whether the contractor may subcontract without telling you. A fair commercial cleaning agreement runs on a rolling basis after a short initial period, takes one to three months' notice from either side, and names the company whose staff will be on site. If a contractor will not show you the termination clause before you sign, that is the answer to the question.

Question 6

How often does a commercial kitchen extract need cleaning, is TR19 a legal requirement, and what will my insurer ask for?

Accepted Answer

No law names an interval for cleaning the kitchen itself. The extract system is different. BESA's TR19 Grease specification sets minimum cleaning intervals by daily cooking hours: every 3 months for heavy use of 12 to 16 hours a day, every 6 months for 6 to 12 hours, every 12 months for 2 to 6 hours, with grease kept below a 200 micron mean. TR19 Grease is not a statute, but the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 makes the responsible person accountable for the fire risk, and fire officers and insurers use TR19 Grease as the benchmark. A cleaning company that tells you the law requires a professional kitchen clean every six months is, as a forum put it when one tried it, trying it on. Your insurer will want the post-clean verification report: before and after photographs from matching positions, micron readings at each access point and a signed certificate.

Question 7

What does a deep clean include and how is it different from the regular clean?

Accepted Answer

A deep clean is everything the routine visit does not reach. High and low dusting, skirtings, doors and frames, the insides of cupboards, behind and under furniture and appliances, descaling washrooms, machine-scrubbing hard floors and extracting carpets. One Mumsnet reply drew the line simply: the regular clean is the surfaces you use every day, and anything else is classed as a deep clean. It is quoted per job after a walk-round, usually quarterly or twice a year, and it should come with its own task list so you can check what was done against what was priced. In a commercial kitchen it also covers the cooking line, canopy, drains and cold stores, while the extract ductwork behind the canopy is cleaned separately under TR19 Grease and reported with micron readings. Booking one does not cover the other.

Question 8

How often should a small office of 2 to 20 people be cleaned?

Accepted Answer

Twice a week is the practical minimum most contractors recommend for that size, moving to daily where there is a kitchen in heavy use, visitors through reception or one washroom shared by everyone. Washrooms and bins drive the frequency more than desks do. A ten-desk office cleaned twice a week asked exactly this on MyJobQuote in July 2026, and the ten tradespeople who answered treated twice weekly as normal, with the price moving on who supplies the products and whether the visit is out of hours. The legal test under the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 is that cleanliness has to be proportionate to how fast dirt builds up, which is why a working specification sets a frequency room by room rather than one number for the building. Washrooms daily and desks twice a week is a common answer.

Question 9

Can cleaning happen out of hours, and how are keys, alarms and confidentiality handled?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Most London office cleaning happens early morning or in the evening. Out-of-hours work needs a key or fob, alarm codes and a written key-holding policy that says who holds what and what happens when a cleaner leaves the contractor. Daytime cleaning removes the key security worry but needs a schedule that keeps the team out of meeting rooms in use. A Mumsnet thread about a cleaner walking into meetings and leaving security doors open in an access-controlled building ended with the same advice from several people: raise it with the contractor's manager, not the cleaner, and agree the cleaning times in writing. A good contract names a supervisor, states the door and alarm procedure, requires confidential papers to be left untouched, and includes a sign-off sheet for rooms that could not be accessed that night.

Question 10

How do I know a cleaning company is legitimate: insurance, DBS, right to work, Companies House?

Accepted Answer

Five checks, none of them expensive. Look the company up on Companies House and read its filing history, not just its existence. Ask for the public liability and employers' liability certificates; employers' liability insurance is a legal requirement for any employer. Ask for two client references you can telephone. Ask who will actually turn up and whether they are employed or subcontracted. Ask for the company's right-to-work policy in writing, since the employer must check every cleaner's right to work before they start, whatever their nationality. On DBS: no law requires checks for cleaners in ordinary offices or shops, though a Basic DBS is good practice and many firms do it. Enhanced DBS checks are required where cleaners work unsupervised around children or vulnerable adults, so in schools, nurseries and care settings the school or setting decides the level.

Question 11

Why does the cleaner miss the same areas every week and who checks their work?

Accepted Answer

Because nobody is checking, and often because the hours were never there. Two Mumsnet threads from office workers describe the pattern: desks, bins and hoovering done, cupboards, monitors, printers and phones never touched, dust on the desk unnoticed, nothing under it. The replies from cleaners were blunt: if it is not in the contract, it is not for them to do, and the office manager in one thread admitted the contract did not allow the time. The fix has three parts. A written specification that says who wipes IT equipment and how often. Enough hours priced in to do what the specification says. A supervisor who inspects against it, records the result, and gets a missed area re-cleaned and logged rather than argued about. Ask any contractor how often a supervisor visits and how you get to see the inspection record.

Question 12

What must a departing commercial tenant clean and prove at lease end, and how do dilapidations work?

Accepted Answer

Most leases require the premises to be yielded up clean and in good repair and decorative condition, whatever state they were in at the start, unless a schedule of condition was attached to the lease. A dilapidations claim covers repair, redecoration, reinstatement of alterations and cleaning. Section 18 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 caps a repair claim at the actual loss in value of the landlord's interest. A tenant on UK Business Forums facing a claim of nearly £40,000 on a Central London lease with no schedule of condition was told to appoint a dilapidations surveyor and get independent contractor quotes; another member reported that doing so cut a £12,000 claim to £4,000. A documented end-of-lease clean, with photographs before and after and a TR19 Grease certificate where there is a kitchen, is cheap evidence against a padded claim.

Question 13

What is the difference between a builders clean and a sparkle clean, and how are they priced?

Accepted Answer

A builders clean follows the trades off site. It removes construction dust, debris, paint and plaster residue, adhesive and protective film so the space is safe to snag and inspect. A sparkle clean is the last visit, after the snag list is closed and immediately before handover: glass, chrome, floors and every surface the client will touch on the walkthrough. Both are priced per job after a site visit. Contractors on Cleantalk quoted about £15 per square metre for a builders plus sparkle clean and put a sparkle clean at roughly 40 per cent of the builders-clean price, and one reported quotes on a single scheme ranging from £10,000 to £25,000, which is why the specification and phases have to be agreed in writing. Replies on both trade forums warned about 90-day payment terms and disputes, and advised written sign-off at each phase.

Question 14

How is carpet and hard floor cleaning priced?

Accepted Answer

By the square metre, with a minimum charge for small areas, and the rate depends on whether the job is maintenance or restoration. The figures cleaners quote each other on Cleantalk are roughly £1.50 to £2 per square metre for maintenance carpet cleaning and £2.50 to £4 for restoration cleans, £3 to £5.50 for vinyl and lino, £6 to £8 per square metre for hard-floor cleaning and £12 to £15 including a new dressing or seal. Those are contractor-to-contractor figures, not ours. What moves the price is the state of the floor, the access, whether furniture has to be shifted, and whether the work fits into one out-of-hours visit. Periodic floor work belongs in the specification with a frequency against it, so it is priced once rather than quoted every quarter. Where a floor is past cleaning, repair or replacement is a different trade.

Questions people ask before they hire a commercial cleaner

How much does commercial cleaning cost per hour in London, and what is a fair rate?

How is office cleaning priced: per hour, per square metre, per visit or per month, and what is included?

If I switch cleaning company, do the existing cleaners transfer under TUPE?

What should a cleaning contract and specification include, and how do I compare quotes fairly?

How long is the contract, what notice do I need to give, and can I get out?

How often does a commercial kitchen extract need cleaning, is TR19 a legal requirement, and what will my insurer ask for?

What does a deep clean include and how is it different from the regular clean?

How often should a small office of 2 to 20 people be cleaned?

Can cleaning happen out of hours, and how are keys, alarms and confidentiality handled?

How do I know a cleaning company is legitimate: insurance, DBS, right to work, Companies House?

Why does the cleaner miss the same areas every week and who checks their work?

What must a departing commercial tenant clean and prove at lease end, and how do dilapidations work?

What is the difference between a builders clean and a sparkle clean, and how are they priced?

How is carpet and hard floor cleaning priced?

Four things people wish their cleaning company did.

A written specification

The same team, with named cover

A supervisor who checks

One contact and one invoice

Sources

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