If you're comparing commercial cleaning quotes, the honest answer to "how much should this cost?" is: it depends on quite a few things, but not in a way that makes prices unpredictable. There's a real, well-established range for UK commercial cleaning in 2026, and once you know what drives it, a quote is easy to sanity-check.
The three ways commercial cleaning is priced
Most UK cleaning contractors quote one of three ways:
- Per hour — you pay for time on site. Common for smaller offices or one-off jobs.
- Per square foot — the price scales with floor area. Used for larger, more standardised spaces like open-plan offices or warehouses.
- Fixed monthly contract — a set fee for an agreed schedule and scope. This is the norm for regular office cleaning, since it lets the cleaning company plan staff and routes properly around your site.
Typical UK hourly rates (2026)
Outside London and the South East — which typically run 30-50% higher — most UK businesses pay in this range:
| Service | Typical rate |
|---|---|
| Standard office cleaning | £15 – £30 per hour (most quotes land £18-£25) |
| Deep cleaning | £25 – £45 per hour |
| Specialist industrial cleaning | £25 – £60 per hour |
| Post-construction / builders' clean | £15 – £45 per hour, depending on debris and access |
Typical UK per-square-foot rates
| Space type | Typical rate per clean |
|---|---|
| Standard office | £0.10 – £0.30 per sq ft |
| Retail units | £0.10 – £0.20 per sq ft |
| Warehouse / industrial | £0.05 – £0.15 per sq ft |
| Deep cleaning (any space) | £0.20 – £0.60 per sq ft |
What a monthly contract typically costs
For a regular, scheduled contract (the most common arrangement for offices, schools and retail), most businesses pay somewhere between £300 and £5,000+ per month, depending on:
- Site size — a 1,000 sq ft office costs meaningfully less than a 10,000 sq ft one
- Frequency — daily cleaning costs more than three-times-weekly, which costs more than weekly
- Specification — washroom servicing, consumables, and specialist floor care all add to scope
- Region — North East England rates typically sit at or below the UK-wide averages above, since London and the South East pull the national average up
Add-on services worth budgeting for separately
| Service | Typical rate |
|---|---|
| Carpet cleaning | £1 – £3 per square metre |
| Hard floor cleaning & polishing | £2 – £5 per square metre |
| Window cleaning | £1.50 – £3 per window (£5-£10 for high-access/high-rise) |
Why a very cheap quote should raise a flag, not excitement
The National Living Wage is £12.71 an hour from April 2026. Once you add employer National Insurance, pension contributions, holiday cover, insurance, supervision time and cleaning materials on top of that wage, a legitimate charge-out rate has very little room to sit much below £15-16 an hour. If a quote comes in significantly under that, it's worth asking directly how the provider is managing their costs — because the answer is often that something (proper insurance, genuine employment status, holiday pay) isn't actually being provided.
How to sanity-check any quote you receive
- Ask whether the price is per visit, per month, or an annual figure divided down — these get confused surprisingly often
- Check what's actually included — consumables, washroom servicing and specialist floor care are sometimes quoted separately
- Confirm insurance levels directly — genuine public and employers' liability cover costs money, and a provider without it can quote lower for a reason
- Ask about staffing — the same trained team on-site every time costs more to organise than "whoever's available," but delivers a more consistent result
Get an exact figure for your site
Ranges are useful for budgeting, but the only way to get a genuinely accurate number is a proper site visit — square footage, layout, washroom count and required frequency all move the final price more than any general guide can capture.
At Everglow Cleaners, we quote after a free site visit, with a written proposal within 24 hours. We hold £1M public liability and £10M employers' liability insurance, and the same trained team works your site every visit — not whoever's available that day.