Office cleaning cost in the UK runs about £18 to £25 per hour, more in central London, and the office cleaning cost per month for a small office is roughly £300 to £800 on a regular contract. Published rates run from £13 an hour in advertising to £40 and beyond for specialist London work, which makes comparing quotes harder than it should be.
Most of that spread has a reason behind it. Some rates cover labour only and expect you to supply the chemicals and equipment. Some are quoted before VAT. Some assume daytime hours, and some assume a team arriving at six in the morning. Line them up properly and commercial cleaning rates per hour in the UK sit in a far tighter band than the published figures suggest. This guide sets out what the office cleaning cost should look like by hour, by square foot and by month, what moves it, and how to read a quote properly before you sign anything.
It is for office managers, practice managers and business owners buying cleaning for the first time or replacing a contractor. For a figure on your own premises, get a quote, and we will price it against your floor area, washrooms and access times.
Office Cleaning Prices at a Glance
| How it is priced | Typical UK figure | Best suited to |
| Per hour, per cleaner | £18 to £25 | Small offices, one or two visits a week |
| Per square foot, regular clean | £0.15 to £0.30 | Offices quoted off a floor plan |
| Small office, up to 10 desks | £300 to £800 a month | Weekly or three visits a week |
| Medium office, 10 to 30 desks | £800 to £2,000 a month | Daily cleaning |
| Large or multi-floor site | £2,000 a month and up | Daily cleaning, multiple areas |
The hourly and per-square-foot figures come from the MyBuilder office cleaning cost guide, updated 21 August 2026. The monthly bands are the ranges most commonly published across UK cleaning contractors in 2026, and they are wide because a “small office” covers everything from four desks cleaned on a Friday to ten desks cleaned three times a week.
Treat all of these as a sanity check on a quote, and as a rough commercial cleaning cost calculator for your own floor area and frequency. No figure replaces a site visit, because two offices of identical floor area can differ by an hour a visit depending on how many washrooms and meeting rooms sit inside it.
How Office Cleaning Is Priced
Three pricing models are in common use, and the one a contractor offers tells you something about how they work.
Per Hour
A rate per cleaner per hour, with an agreed number of hours per visit. It is the clearest model for a small office: you see exactly what you are buying. Watch for two things: whether the rate includes chemicals and equipment, and whether VAT is on top. Several London contractors publish two hourly rates side by side, a lower one for labour only where you supply the materials, and a higher one where the contractor supplies everything. The gap is usually around £1.50 an hour.
Per Square Foot or Square Metre
Priced off your floor area at roughly £0.15 to £0.30 per square foot for a regular clean. It suits larger or multi-floor sites where counting desks stops being useful, and it needs a floor plan or site measurement. Open-plan prices better per square foot than the same area chopped into small rooms and corridors.
A Fixed Monthly Contract
One monthly figure covering an agreed schedule, usually with consumables included. It is the most common arrangement above about ten desks and the easiest to budget. Daily cleaning costs more per month than three visits a week, and usually less per visit, because the team settles into a routine.
Small offices tend to do best on an hourly rate. Anything above roughly 3,000 square feet is normally quoted per square foot or as a fixed monthly contract.
Office Cleaning Cost by Office Size
Worked examples are more useful than ranges, so here are three, built from the hourly and square-foot figures above. Every one assumes the contractor brings their own products and equipment.
A 1 to 10 desk office, around 1,000 square feet. Cleaned once a week, a visit takes roughly 1.5 to 2 hours: bins, desks, kitchen, one or two washrooms, floors. At £18 to £25 an hour, that is about £27 to £50 per visit, so £120 to £215 a month. Move to three visits a week and the same office lands at roughly £350 to £650 a month. Per square foot, the same clean prices at £150 to £300 each time.
A 10 to 30 desk office, around 3,000 square feet, cleaned daily. Allow 2 to 3 hours a visit for a space this size with a kitchen and two or three washrooms. Across 21 or 22 working days, that is roughly £800 to £1,600 a month, with consumables usually inside the figure. Priced off floor area instead, a 3,000 square foot office comes out at £450 to £900 per clean.
A 50 desk site, 5,000 square feet or more. This is contract territory, usually daily and often two cleaners working together, sometimes with a daytime housekeeper on top for kitchens and washrooms. At £0.15 to £0.30 per square foot, one clean of 5,000 square feet prices at £750 to £1,500, and a daily contract runs into several thousand a month. At this size, the specification matters more than the headline rate: the gap between a 40-minute washroom routine and a 15-minute one is the whole service.
London vs Kent and South East London Prices
Central London is the expensive end of every published range, and three things drive it. Wages are higher because contractors competing for staff in zone one pay above the national floor. Parking is paid or permit-only, and the congestion charge applies to daytime work inside the zone. And travel time between sites is longer, which means fewer jobs a day per team.
Offices in Dartford, Bexley, Gravesend and the rest of north Kent sit at the national end of the scale, generally the £18 to £25 an hour band. South East London falls in between: higher than Kent, below central London rates. An office in Bexleyheath and an office in the City are different propositions, and a quote that treats them the same is worth questioning.
We work from Crossways in Dartford, which covers Kent and South East London without a central London overhead attached to the rate. Towns we cover include Dartford, Swanley, Erith, Bexleyheath, Bexley, Gravesend, Sidcup, Orpington, Eltham, Woolwich, Bromley, Sevenoaks, Greenwich, Lewisham and Maidstone.
What Affects the Price
How Often You Clean
Frequency is the biggest single lever. Daily cleaning costs the most per month and the least per visit. A weekly clean costs the least per month and the most per visit, because a week of dust, bins and kitchen use has built up by the time anyone arrives. Three visits a week suits offices of 10 to 30 people.
Office Size and Layout
Floor area sets the baseline, layout changes the hours. Open plan cleans faster per square foot than the same area divided into small meeting rooms, pods and corridors, where a vacuum has to be carried in and out of each one.
Washrooms and Kitchens
These are the most labour-intensive areas in any office and the two that staff notice first. More washrooms, or heavier use of the ones you have, raises the hours. A kitchen used by 30 people needs more than a wipe-down.
Out-of-Hours and Weekend Cleaning
Cleaning before staff arrive or after they leave avoids all disruption, and unsociable hours attract a premium, commonly quoted at around 15% to 25%. For most offices, it is worth it, because a cleaner working around occupied desks at 2 pm does a slower and more intrusive job. We clean early mornings, evenings and weekends as standard.
Consumables
Toilet roll, hand soap and bin liners are either in your rate or billed separately, and the difference is easy to miss when comparing quotes. Ask directly. On our office contracts, toilet roll and hand soap are restocked and bin bags replaced as part of the service.
Access, Parking and Key Holding
A contractor who holds a key or an alarm code can clean an empty building, which is faster and cheaper than working around people. If every visit needs someone from your team to stay late and lock up, you absorb that cost in your own staff hours. Paid parking, barrier access and security sign-in all add time.
What’s Included and What Costs Extra
| Usually included in a regular contract | Usually quoted separately |
| Desks, surfaces and IT equipment dusted | Periodic deep cleans |
| Kitchens cleaned and appliances wiped | Carpet cleaning and hard-floor treatment |
| Washrooms cleaned and sanitised | Internal and external window cleaning |
| Floors vacuumed and mopped | Washroom services such as sanitary bins and air care |
| Bins emptied and liners replaced | Upholstery and blind cleaning |
| Toilet roll and hand soap restocked | One-off cleans after building work or an event |
| Reception and communal areas | Jet washing and external areas |
Set one expectation early, because it comes up constantly on r/AskUK: cleaning and tidying are different jobs. A cleaner wipes surfaces, empties bins and does floors, working around whatever is left on a desk. Offices that run a clear-desk routine on cleaning nights get noticeably more cleaned for the same money.
Our office cleaning service covers the left column, with all products and equipment brought by the team. We also clean gyms, schools, churches and halls and warehouses, which have their own routines.
Minimum Hours, VAT and Other Hidden Costs
Most contractors set a minimum visit length, commonly two hours, and many set a minimum weekly commitment on contract work, often from around ten hours. A 45-minute clean rarely exists at a sensible price, because travel and set-up cost the same however short the visit.
VAT catches people out. Commercial quotes are frequently shown before VAT while domestic ones are shown after, so a £20 rate and a £24 rate can be the same number. Ask every contractor which they are quoting.
Also check who pays for parking where there is no free space, whether an out-of-hours premium applies to your chosen times, and whether consumables are inside the rate. Those three together can move a quote by 20% without changing a single cleaning task.
Contract Terms to Check Before You Sign
The headline rate matters less than what sits around it. The market explains some of the variation: British Cleaning Council research from February 2026 counted 78,915 cleaning, hygiene and waste businesses, 83% of them micro businesses employing fewer than ten people. BCC Chair David Garcia called the findings “a picture of an industry which is steadily growing, with strengths and challenges”. That mix is why quotes vary so widely, and why these checks matter more than the brand on the van.
Ask for these in writing.
- A named specification. A room-by-room task list with frequencies, so “office cleaning” means something specific. Vague scope is where almost every contract dispute begins.
- Cover arrangements. What happens when your regular cleaner is sick or on holiday. Business owners on UK Business Forums come back to this more than price: holiday and sick cover is the gap that turns a working arrangement into a problem, and a contract silent on it usually means you find out the hard way.
- A price-review clause. The National Living Wage is already published for April 2027 at £13.21, up from £12.71, a rise of just under 4%. Any contract running past that date will feel it, so agree now how and when prices can change.
- Notice period and renewal. Check the term length, the notice you must give, and whether it renews automatically.
- What happens when a clean falls short. There should be a route to report it and a commitment to put it right. Ours is a free re-clean within 48 hours.
- Insurance and chemical safety. Ask for the public liability certificate and check it is current, and ask whether COSHH assessments are available for the products used on your site. We are fully insured, and we are happy to provide our certificate on request.
Hiring a Contractor or Employing Your Own Cleaner
Employing directly looks cheaper on the hourly rate and rarely is once the full cost appears. You pay the wage, plus employer’s National Insurance, holiday pay, pension contributions, and the cost of equipment, chemicals and storage space for them. You carry the recruitment, the cover when they are off sick, and the employment liability. Employers on UK Business Forums list the same catch every time: the wage is the part you see, and auto-enrolment pensions, statutory sick and holiday pay, and the bookkeeping behind it all arrive afterwards. Threads there put the gap between a cleaner’s pay and the billed rate at roughly £12 against £20 to £24, the same arithmetic set out below.
The statutory floor is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over from April 2026. Many contractors also pay the voluntary real Living Wage, higher again at £14.10 outside London and £15.45 inside it. Add the on-costs to either figure and a contractor rate of £18 to £25 stops looking like a markup and starts looking like arithmetic. A quote far below that band is worth a second look at who is absorbing the difference.
Direct employment can work for a large site with a full-time housekeeper. Below that, a contract usually wins on cover alone.
How to Get an Accurate Quote
Tell a cleaning company six things, and you will get a firm price: your floor area in square feet or the number of desks, how many washrooms and kitchens you have, how often you want a visit, the hours you want the team on site, how they get in and out, and whether you need consumables supplied. A site visit sharpens all of it, and any contractor quoting a multi-floor building without seeing it is guessing.
FAQs
What is the average cost of office cleaning in the UK?
About £18 to £25 per hour per cleaner for a regular contract, or £0.15 to £0.30 per square foot. A small office of up to 10 desks typically costs £300 to £800 a month depending on how often it is cleaned.
How much do office cleaners charge per hour in the UK?
£18 to £25 across most of the UK, rising in central London, where specialist and out-of-hours work is quoted higher. Check whether the rate includes VAT, and whether it includes chemicals and equipment.
How much does a 2-hour office clean cost?
Roughly £36 to £50 at standard UK rates, before VAT. Two hours is the common minimum visit, and it covers bins, desks, a kitchen, one or two washrooms and floors in a small office.
Is £20 an hour a fair price for office cleaning?
For most offices outside central London, yes. Set it against a statutory wage floor of £12.71 an hour: the remainder covers employer’s National Insurance, holiday pay, travel, products, equipment, insurance, supervision and margin. Quotes well under that band usually mean fewer hours on site than you expect.
Do office cleaning prices include VAT?
Often not. Commercial cleaning is commonly quoted before VAT at 20%, so confirm it on every quote before you compare two numbers.
A clean workplace is also a legal duty. The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 and their Approved Code of Practice cover cleanliness alongside ventilation, temperature and lighting, so the standard you set in a cleaning contract is part of how you meet it.
Get an Office Cleaning Quote in South East London and Kent
Out-of-hours cleaning before or after your team is in, key and alarm-code access so we can work in an empty building, all products and equipment brought with us, consumables restocked, and a fully insured team. If a clean falls short, we re-clean it free within 48 hours.
Get your office cleaning quote or call 01322 250 632.
