What is a good hourly rate for a self-employed cleaner in the UK?

Most self-employed domestic cleaners charge £15 to £25 an hour outside London and £18 to £30 in London in 2026. After travel time, products and platform fees, the effective rate is usually £14 to £22 an hour, and it rises with regular clients who are close together.

How much can a full-time self-employed cleaner earn?

As a general UK guide, £450 to £660 a week gross is realistic with a mostly regular client base, working five days and billing five to six hours a day. From that come products, travel, insurance and tax. Higher figures usually mean a second cleaner, short-let turnover work, or both.

Is end-of-tenancy cleaning more profitable than regular cleaning?

Per job, yes, but not always per hour. A two-bed end-of-tenancy clean at around £200 typically takes two people around six hours, which works out similar to a good regular domestic rate. The advantage is volume from letting agents. The disadvantage is that the standard is re-inspected and long days are the norm.

Do I need insurance to be a self-employed cleaner?

It is not a legal requirement for most domestic work, but public liability insurance costs roughly £60 to £200 a year and many letting agents and commercial clients will not book you without it. It covers damage and injury you cause, not putting right your own work. On Taskerama you can show it as a verified badge on your profile.

How much do cleaners earn in the UK? Real rates for domestic, end of tenancy and Airbnb

Cleaning is one of the easiest trades to start. What you earn from it depends far less on speed or skill than on two choices: what type of work you take, and how many of your clients are repeat. Get those right and cleaning becomes a proper business.

The four kinds of cleaning work, and what each pays

Work	What the customer pays	What you realistically clear per hour	The catch
Regular domestic	£15, £25 an hour, more in London	£14, £22 after travel and products	Rate is capped, but the work is predictable
One-off deep clean	£120, £250 for a flat	£16, £24	Physically hard, no repeat unless you ask
End of tenancy	£150, £260 for a two-bed	£18, £25	Long days, high standard, agents re-check
Airbnb and short-let turnover	£35, £55 studio, £50, £80 two-bed, £70, £110 three-bed	£20, £30 if the properties are close together	Same-day windows, laundry, key logistics
Commercial and office	Often close to the National Living Wage per hour on contract	Lower per hour, but volume and regularity	Unsociable hours, slow payment terms

Employed agency cleaning sits below all of these. An agency charges the client £20 an hour and pays the cleaner substantially less, because it carries the marketing, the scheduling and the risk. That is the reason to go self-employed: you keep the margin. Taskerama gives you the customers and the payment protection, so you keep that margin without carrying all the risk yourself.

Where the money actually goes

Take a straightforward £60 domestic clean, three hours in a house twenty minutes away.

Time on site: 3 hours
Travel: 40 minutes return
Products and cloths used: about £3
Fuel or fares: about £5

That is 3 hours 40 minutes and £8 of costs, so £52 across 3.7 hours, or roughly £14 an hour before platform fees. A fair one-off, but not yet a business.

Now take the same £60 clean where the client books you every fortnight for two years, and the house is one of three you do on the same street on the same morning.

Travel drops to a few minutes between jobs
Quoting time drops to zero, permanently
On Taskerama, that repeat client carries 0% commission when you invoice them yourself, with only a processing and protection charge

The same clean is now worth close to £18 to £19 an hour, and it repeats fifty times. That is the whole business in one comparison.

Why repeat clients are everything

Three reasons, in order of size.

Empty slots cost you the full rate. A cleaner with a diary that is 60% full is earning 60% of their potential, no matter how fast they clean. Regular bookings fill the diary in advance.

Winning a client takes time you do not bill. Every quote, every message, every visit that does not convert is unpaid. A client who rebooks costs nothing to win again.

Density compounds. Four clients in one neighbourhood on one morning is a different job from four clients across a city. It is the difference between five hours of work and eight.

The practical version: at the end of every job, before you leave, ask whether they would like the same slot next fortnight, and put it in a diary they can see. Then send that booking through your own clients on Taskerama. You pay no commission, the customer pays by card, and the job still earns a review on your profile.

What a realistic week looks like

These are general UK market figures for self-employed cleaning, not a promise of what any one person will earn.

Part-time, around another job. Two or three cleans a week at £50 to £70, so roughly £120 to £200 a week gross, less fees and costs. Once you have a few reviews, this is a realistic early target in a city.

Full-time, mostly regulars. Five to six hours of billed cleaning a day, five days a week, at £18 to £22 an hour effective. That is £450 to £660 a week gross. Out of it come products, travel, insurance and tax. Note the effective hours: almost nobody bills eight hours of cleaning in an eight-hour day, because travel and setup are real.

End-of-tenancy focused. Higher per job, fewer jobs, and you will usually need a second pair of hands. A two-bed at £200 taking two people six hours is about £16 an hour each before costs. The money in this work comes from doing two a day and from agent relationships that supply steady volume, not from the headline price.

Airbnb turnover. The strongest per-hour rate in cleaning if you can cluster properties. Three two-bed turnovers in the same building at £60 each is £180 for perhaps five hours with almost no travel. The same three across a city is a full day.

What actually raises your rate

In rough order of effect:

Being trusted with keys or a key safe. A cleaner who works while the client is out is worth more than one who needs someone home, because it makes the booking effortless.
A DBS badge on your profile. A DBS check is cheap and quick, and it removes the biggest hesitation a customer has about letting a stranger into an empty house. Add it to your Taskerama profile as a verified badge. See DBS checks for the self-employed.
Public liability insurance. £60 to £200 a year, and it unlocks letting agents and commercial clients who will not use you without it. Add it as a verified insurance badge too.
Bringing your own equipment and products. It justifies a higher rate outright, and it makes your standard consistent.
Specialising upward. Ovens, carpets, after-builders cleaning and short-let turnover all pay better than general domestic, and all take some kit and some learning.
Behaving like a business. A proper invoice, a written quote, arriving in the window you promised. On Taskerama you can generate a receipt or invoice for every job from your invoices, which matters to landlords and agents.
Reviews. Cleaning is the category where reviews do the most work, because the customer is trusting you with their home.

The downsides, and how to handle them

It is physically hard, and the strain builds up in knees, shoulders and back, so pace your week. Cancellations happen at short notice. Set a clear cancellation policy and state it when you quote. Products and equipment wear out faster than you expect, so price them in. Bank holidays and August are quieter, which is when a base of regulars matters most. And general domestic work has a ceiling on hourly rate, which is why the cleaners who grow either specialise or take on a second person.

Tax and admin

Over the £1,000 trading allowance you must register for Self Assessment. Mileage at 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles is usually a cleaner's biggest deduction, along with products, equipment and insurance. Keep a mileage log as you go. Details in side-hustle tax in the UK.

Start cleaning on Taskerama

Joining is free and quoting is free. Your service fee falls as your earnings grow, and every fee is shown up front on our fees page. Payment is held for each job, and released automatically 7 days after you request it if the customer goes quiet. Set up your cleaning profile today.