Office Cleaning Cost At A Glance
- Most UK offices pay £15–£25 per cleaner per hour on contract in 2026, and £20–£32 in London and the South East — ad-hoc work runs £20–£40 an hour.
- By area, routine office cleaning is £1–£3 per m² per visit (£0.10–£0.30 per sq ft) — a small office on two or three visits a week lands at £195–£650 a month.
- All commercial cleaning carries VAT at 20%, and published rates are quoted net — which is why B2B quotes read "£19.00/hour + VAT" rather than as one number.
- You are buying hours on site, not floor area — a trained operative covers roughly 230–250 m² an hour, so the specification decides the price.
- London runs wider than the usual regional gap here — 30–50% above the cheapest regional hourly rates, not the 20–35% seen elsewhere in cleaning.
- Out-of-hours and weekend work adds £5–£10 an hour, or 15–25% on the contract rate.
Add to Preferred Sources How Much Does Office Cleaning Cost In 2026?
Office cleaning is bought differently from house cleaning. You are not booking a person for three hours; you are buying a specification, delivered to a schedule, with cover when someone is off sick and an invoice finance can process. This guide covers commercial contracts — for a cleaner at home, our regular cleaning cost guide is the right page.
UK contractors quote three ways: per hour, the norm under about 30 desks; per square metre or square foot per visit, which takes over on larger and multi-floor sites; and a fixed monthly fee, where most contracts settle once the contractor has costed the hours and added materials and management.
Two things trip up first-time buyers. VAT — commercial cleaning is standard-rated at 20%, any contractor turning over more than £90,000 must charge it, and nearly every published rate is net. And minimum commitment: many contractors will not take a site below around 10 hours a week. Sources also disagree more here than on any other cleaning service, because "an office clean" can mean a 45-minute bin run or a three-hour specification. The table gives the honest spread, excluding VAT.
| Unit of sale | Rest of UK | London & South East |
|---|---|---|
| Contract hourly rate, per cleaner | £15–£25 | £20–£32 |
| Ad-hoc or one-off hourly rate | £20–£30 | £25–£40 |
| Routine clean, per m² per visit | £1–£3 | £1.30–£3.80 |
| Routine clean, per sq ft per visit | £0.10–£0.30 | £0.13–£0.35 |
| Per desk per month, near-daily contract | £30–£65 | £45–£90 |
| Typical visit, small office (up to 10 desks) | £35–£60 | £48–£80 |
| Minimum contract commitment | 5–10 hours/week | from 10 hours/week |
| Out-of-hours or weekend uplift | +£5–£10/hour (15–25%) | +£5–£10/hour (15–25%) |
| One-off deep clean | from £150 | £250–£950 |
Office Cleaning Cost By Office Size And Contract Frequency
Frequency does more to your annual bill than any negotiation over the hourly rate. Going from three visits a week to five adds roughly two thirds to the monthly cost — but it shortens each visit, so the per-visit rate drops.
| Office size | Approx. desks | Cleaning frequency | Rest of UK (per month) | London & South East (per month) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micro office | 1–5 | 1–2 visits a week | £100–£260 | £140–£340 |
| Small office | 5–10 | 2–3 visits a week | £195–£500 | £280–£650 |
| Small office, daily | 5–10 | 5 visits a week | £400–£800 | £520–£1,100 |
| Medium office | 10–30 | 3–5 visits a week | £500–£1,500 | £900–£1,900 |
| Large office | 30–100 | 5 visits a week | £1,200–£2,800 | £1,900–£3,900 |
| Multi-floor site | 100+ | Daily plus day porter | £3,000–£6,000+ | £4,500–£9,000+ |
What Affects The Cost Of Office Cleaning?
1. Hours On Site, Not Square Metres
Every quote is labour hours multiplied by a rate, with materials and management on top. BICSc productivity guidance puts a trained operative at roughly 230–250 m² an hour on general office work — a figure that collapses in washrooms, kitchens and dense open-plan floors. Two contractors quoting the same building can differ by 40% because one allowed three hours a night and the other two.
2. Cleaning Frequency And Contract Length
Daily cleaning costs more in total and less per visit: London contractors publish £45–£55 a visit for a five-day-a-week small office against £60–£80 for the same office cleaned weekly. Six or twelve months' commitment typically buys 10–15% off the per-visit rate; rolling monthly costs more, and is worth it if you might move.
3. When The Clean Happens
Most offices are cleaned before 8am or after 6pm so nobody works around a mop, and that is priced in. Push further — overnight, weekends, bank holidays — and expect £5–£10 an hour on top, or 15–25% on the contract rate. A daytime day porter is a separate full-cost head and the biggest line on large-site contracts.
4. Your Location
This is where office cleaning breaks the usual pattern. Across most cleaning trades London runs 20–35% above the rest of the UK; here the gap is wider. London office cleaning averaged £20.50–£26.80 an hour in April 2026 while Manchester and Leeds sat at roughly £11–£20 — a 30–50% spread at the midpoints. The London Living Wage is £14.80 against £13.45 elsewhere, and on top sit the £18 congestion charge, ULEZ, parking and unpaid travel between sites. The gap narrows on large contracts, where materials and management dilute the labour.
5. Washrooms, Kitchens And Consumables
Washrooms are the slowest square metres in the building and are often quoted separately, at £28–£42 a visit as a London add-on; kitchens and breakout areas run £28–£40. Sanitary waste is a separate regulated service — serviced bins are billed at £8–£15 per bin per visit, self-managed disposable units at about £4.83 plus VAT each. Ask whether consumables are in the rate or invoiced at cost plus margin.
6. Specification And Periodic Work
A routine clean does not include carpets, high-level dusting, internal glass or floor restoration. Those are priced separately: a one-off London deep clean is £250–£950, or from £3.00 per m² plus VAT on larger predictable spaces; annual carpet cleaning £150–£650; monthly internal window cleaning £80–£250. If the building has a commercial kitchen, extract cleaning falls under BESA's TR19 Grease standard and sits outside a cleaning contract.
What's Included — And What's Not
A standard office cleaning contract covers:
- Emptying and re-lining bins, and moving waste to the bin store
- Desk and surface wiping where desks are clear, plus high-touch points
- Vacuuming carpets and mopping hard floors
- Washroom cleaning, sanitising and replenishment from stock you hold
- Kitchen and breakout surfaces, sinks and appliance exteriors
- Reception, meeting rooms and circulation areas
- Supervision, quality audits and absence cover
Charged as extras:
- Consumables — toilet rolls, towels, soap, liners — at cost or on a supply contract
- Sanitary waste and washroom services — £8–£15 per bin per service
- Carpet cleaning — £150–£650 a year, or £2–£4 per m²
- Window cleaning — £80–£300+ a visit, or £2–£4 a pane
- Deep cleans and post-event cleans — £250–£950 and £150–£500
- High-level dusting, floor stripping and sealing, upholstery
- Out-of-hours, weekend and bank holiday work
- VAT at 20% on all of it
Should You Employ In-House Or Contract Out?
For most offices under about 40 desks, contracting out wins on cost. Do the arithmetic before you decide.
A directly employed cleaner working 10 hours a week at the Real Living Wage of £13.45 costs £134.50 in gross pay. Add employer's National Insurance at 15%, pension contributions and 12.07% of hours accrued as paid holiday, and the true cost is closer to £17–£18 an hour before you have bought a mop. Then add equipment, chemicals, COSHH assessments, employer's liability insurance and — the one that catches everybody — cover when they are ill or on leave. That is most of the gap between £13.45 and a contractor's £20.
In-house genuinely makes sense in three cases: sites big enough to justify a full-time cleaning team, buildings where security or confidentiality makes rotating contractor staff a problem, and organisations wanting a day porter inside their facilities team. Above roughly 100 desks the maths starts to move.
One warning either way: if you take an existing cleaning operation in-house, or move it from one contractor to another, TUPE may apply and the incumbent's cleaners transfer with their terms intact. Ask before you tender, not after. And what never works is asking your own staff to do it — office managers cleaning kitchens is expensive labour badly deployed.
How To Save Money On Office Cleaning
1. Cut frequency, not specification
Three thorough visits a week beat five rushed ones, and with hybrid working many offices do not need a Monday or Friday clean.
2. Keep it inside normal contract hours
Moving a clean from 5am to 7pm costs nothing; moving it to Saturday costs 15–25%.
3. Buy your own consumables
Contractor markup on toilet rolls and towels is real money on a large site. Ask for the rate net of consumables and compare.
4. Bundle the periodic work and commit to a term
Carpets, internal windows and high-level dusting placed with your cleaning contractor attract 10–15% off separate bookings, and a six- or twelve-month term takes another 10–15% off the per-visit rate.
5. Enforce a clear-desk policy
Cleaners cannot wipe a desk covered in paper. It sounds trivial; it changes what the same money buys.
How To Hire A Good Office Cleaning Contractor
Ask for the hours. A quote giving a monthly figure and nothing else cannot be benchmarked: you want cleaner-hours per visit, visits per week and the rate.
Check the paperwork before the price: public liability insurance (£5m is the usual commercial minimum), employer's liability insurance, a legal requirement for anyone with staff, and operatives trained to BICSc standards. For a site with a commercial kitchen, ask about BESA and TR19 Grease competence.
A proper commercial quote states the specification task by task, the hours allocated, the rate net of VAT, which consumables are included, the notice period, and — the question most buyers forget — what happens when your cleaner is off sick. A contractor with a relief pool puts that in writing.
Red flags: a rate below £20 an hour in London, which usually means someone is uninsured or paying below the Living Wage; a price quoted over the phone with no site survey; and a 12-month term with 3 months' notice on a site you have not tested.
Book your office cleaning today!
Whether you need three evenings a week in a ten-desk studio or a daily contract with a day porter, Fantastic Services quotes on hours and specification, covers absence from a trained relief pool, and invoices monthly with VAT stated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Much Does Office Cleaning Cost Per Hour In The UK?
£15–£25 per cleaner per hour on contract, and £20–£32 in London and the South East, before VAT. Ad-hoc work costs £20–£40 an hour, deep cleaning £30–£45. Manchester and Leeds start around £11–£20; London averaged £20.50–£26.80 in April 2026. Anything under £20 an hour in London is worth questioning.
Is There VAT On Office Cleaning?
Yes. Commercial cleaning is standard-rated at 20% VAT, and any contractor with taxable turnover above £90,000 must register and charge it. Almost all published trade rates are net, so "£19.00 per hour" is really £22.80. If you are VAT-registered you reclaim it — compare quotes net, budget gross.
How Much Does It Cost To Clean A Small Office?
A five-to-ten desk office cleaned two or three times a week costs £195–£500 a month outside London and £280–£650 in London, before VAT. Daily, roughly £400–£800 and £520–£1,100. Per visit, £35–£60 outside London and £48–£80 inside it.
How Often Should An Office Be Cleaned?
Daily for anything with public footfall, shared washrooms or 30-plus staff. Two or three visits a week suits most hybrid offices under 20 desks, with bins and washrooms done every visit, plus a deep clean once or twice a year. Under-cleaning washrooms is the false economy that generates the most staff complaints.
Do Office Cleaners Supply Their Own Equipment And Consumables?
Equipment, usually yes — and where it is excluded you will see it in the rate. One London contractor publishes £19.00 an hour plus VAT labour-only against £20.50 plus VAT with chemicals and machines supplied. Consumables are almost always separate.
What Happens If Our Office Cleaner Is Off Sick?
With a contractor, a relief operative covers the shift — much of what the margin buys, and it should be written into the contract. With a directly employed cleaner you either go uncleaned or pay agency cover at short-notice rates. Ask for the cover ratio before you sign.
Is It Cheaper To Employ A Cleaner Directly Or Use A Contractor?
Below about 40 desks, contracting out is usually cheaper. A cleaner on the £13.45 Real Living Wage really costs £17–£18 an hour once employer's National Insurance at 15%, pension and holiday accrual are added — before equipment, insurance and cover.
