Almost all of a cleaning price is wages, so the rate you are quoted starts at the legal wage floor and works upward through employer's National Insurance, holiday pay, cover for sickness, supervision, consumables, insurance and margin. Once you know that, a quote stops being a number to haggle over and becomes a set of assumptions you can check: how many hours, at what time of day, with how much supervision.
The floor under every quote
The National Living Wage is the statutory minimum for workers aged 21 and over and is set at 12.71 pounds an hour across the UK. The real Living Wage, which is voluntary and calculated on the cost of living, is 13.45 pounds across the UK and 14.80 pounds in London. A commercial cleaning rate below those numbers plus employer's on-costs is not a bargain, it is a question about who is being paid what.
What sits on top of the wage
Employer's National Insurance and pension contributions. Holiday pay, which for a permanent cleaner is more than five weeks a year that somebody still has to cover. Sickness and absence cover, which is the single biggest difference between a contractor and an individual. Supervision and quality auditing. Consumables and machinery if they are included. Then insurance, overhead and margin. The visible hourly rate carries all of it.
Rates fall as the roster grows, and contractors publish it
Commercial cleaning is priced in weekly roster hours because fixed costs are spread across them. One GB contractor, BlueThistle at commercial-cleaning-service.co.uk, publishes a tiered card: 27 pounds an hour for two to fifteen hours a week, 25 pounds for sixteen to twenty, and from 20 pounds an hour above twenty one hours, with a minimum contract block of 50 pounds covering two hours. Read any quote against that shape rather than against a single average.
What moves the price most
Timing, because an hour before seven in the morning or after eight at night costs more than one at midday. Building type, because a food area, a laboratory or a healthcare setting carries a different standard and different consumables. And access, because keys, alarm codes, lifts and loading bays all decide how much of the hour is actually spent cleaning.
Questions people ask about commercial cleaning prices
Is commercial cleaning priced per hour or per square metre?
Most GB contracts are priced per weekly roster hour. Square metre rates appear in one off work such as builders cleans and deep cleans, where the area rather than the routine sets the effort.
Why are quotes for the same office so different?
Usually because the hours differ. Compare the specification and the weekly hours first; a cheaper quote with fewer hours is not a cheaper rate.
Does VAT apply to commercial cleaning?
Yes, where the contractor is VAT registered. Check whether a published rate is stated with or without VAT before comparing it with another.
Should I pay for consumables separately?
Either is workable. What is not workable is silence: the contract should say who supplies washroom paper, soap and bin liners and at what price.