True Cost of a Cleaner Calculator
The wage on the payslip is not what an hour of cleaning costs you. Add employer National Insurance, pension, holiday accrual, sick cover and the hours you pay for but cannot bill, then quote against that number.
True Cost of a Cleaner Calculator
What an employed cleaner actually costs you per delivered hour.
A cleaner on £12.50 costs £16.63 per paid hour, and £19.57 for every hour actually spent on a client site
- Gross wage
- £12.50/hr
- Employer NI
- +£1.50
- Pension
- +£0.38
- Holiday accrual
- +£1.51
- Absence cover
- +£0.38
- Training
- +£0.25
- Uniform, PPE, DBS
- +£0.12
- Cost per paid hour
- £16.63
- Minimum charge-out rate
- £27.95
- Annual wage bill
- £24,375
- Annual true cost
- £32,432
- Billable hours per year
- 1,658 hrs
Quote against £19.57, not £12.50. Quoting off the payslip figure typically overstates margin by 10–15 percentage points.
True cost, on the register
Each cleaner's rate lives on the staff register and feeds the cost line of every job they work, so the number you just worked out stays attached to the work.
Where the extra 25–30% comes from
Every employed hour of cleaning carries a stack of costs on top of the wage. None of them are optional and all of them are predictable, which means they belong in your quote.
| Cost | Typical addition | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Employer National Insurance | ~10–15% of pay | Payable on earnings above the secondary threshold |
| Auto-enrolment pension | ~3% of qualifying earnings | Statutory minimum employer contribution |
| Holiday pay accrual | 12.07% of hours worked | 5.6 weeks statutory leave ÷ 46.4 working weeks |
| Sickness and absence cover | 2–4% | Paying twice for one delivered hour |
| Training, briefings, induction | 1–3% | Paid time that is not on a client site |
| Uniform, PPE, DBS | ~£150–£350 per head per year | Spread across delivered hours |
Stack those and a cleaner on £12.50 an hour costs roughly £15.60 to £16.50 per delivered hour. If you quote at £18 believing your cost is £12.50, you think you are making 30% and you are actually making around 10%.
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The 12.07% holiday rule
UK workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid statutory holiday a year. For staff on irregular hours, the long-standing planning figure is 12.07% of hours worked: derived from 5.6 weeks of leave divided by the 46.4 weeks actually worked.
Holiday pay law for irregular-hours and part-year workers has changed in recent years, including how rolled-up holiday pay may be used for leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024. If you employ term-time, zero-hours or variable-hours cleaners, check the current position on GOV.UK or with your payroll provider rather than relying on a percentage alone.
For costing purposes, 12.07% remains the right figure to build into your hourly rate. For paying people correctly, follow current legislation.
Non-productive hours: the invisible margin killer
A cleaner paid for eight hours does not deliver eight billable hours. Travel between sites, collecting keys, loading and unloading, restocking the van, team briefings and waiting for site access all consume paid time that no client pays for.
On a domestic round with jobs 15–20 minutes apart, 15–20% of the paid day is typically non-productive. On a single-site commercial contract it can be under 5%. This is why domestic rounds need higher hourly rates than commercial contracts to produce the same margin, the delivered hour costs more.
The practical fix is geography. Clustering a cleaner's day into one postcode area is worth more to your margin than a 50p an hour rate increase, and it is free.
Employed versus self-employed cleaners
Engaging cleaners as self-employed subcontractors removes employer National Insurance, pension and holiday accrual from your cost base. It also removes your control over how, when and by whom the work is done, and that is the point HMRC tests.
If you set the hours, provide the equipment and chemicals, require a uniform, prevent substitution and the person works only for you, HMRC is likely to view that as employment regardless of what the contract says. The liability for unpaid PAYE, National Insurance and penalties falls on you, not the worker.
Genuine self-employment in cleaning exists: specialists with their own kit, insurance and client base who work for several firms. Treat the distinction seriously and take advice; the cost of getting it wrong dwarfs the on-costs you were trying to avoid.
