Commercial cleaning: key facts
- Every workplace in Great Britain, and its furniture and fittings, must be kept sufficiently clean (Workplace Regulations 1992, regulation 9). How often and to what standard depends on the nature of the business.
- HSE's Approved Code of Practice says spillages should be cleaned up as soon as possible, and cleaning must be done by a method that doesn't create a health or safety risk.
- Slips and trips are the most common cause of injury at work, according to HSE; most slips happen when floors are wet or contaminated, which is why cleaning methods and timing matter.
- Cleaning chemicals can be hazardous substances under COSHH, so the cleaning company (and you, if you employ cleaners) must assess and control the risks.
- Cleaners' pay can't go below the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour (age 21 and over, from 1 April 2026), rising to £13.21 from 1 April 2027. Contract prices have to cover that plus employer costs.
- When a cleaning contract moves to a new contractor, the cleaners who work on it are likely to be protected by TUPE and may transfer to the new company on their existing terms.
- In a shared building, the landlord looks after the common parts (lobby, stairs, shared toilets) and tenants look after their own space: agree in writing who cleans what.
- Business Cleaning Hub is an independent guide. We don't provide cleaning ourselves.
What does commercial cleaning include?
Commercial cleaning usually means a regular contract to clean a workplace (daily or a few times a week), plus periodic jobs such as carpet and floor care, window cleaning and deep cleans, and specialist work like kitchen extract cleaning or post-construction cleans. Most organisations buy a mix.
It helps to split cleaning into three layers, because they're often bought differently and sometimes from different companies:
| Layer | What it covers | How it's usually bought |
|---|---|---|
| Routine (regular) cleaning | Emptying bins, vacuuming and mopping, cleaning desks and touch points, toilets and kitchens, restocking soap and paper | A contract with a set number of hours or visits a week, often priced monthly |
| Periodic cleaning | Carpet cleaning, hard floor scrubbing and sealing, high-level dusting, inside windows, upholstery, washroom descaling | Built into the contract as a schedule (for example quarterly), or quoted separately |
| Specialist cleaning | Kitchen extract ducts, external windows at height, post-construction cleans, deep cleans after an outbreak or a flood | One-off or scheduled jobs, often by a specialist with its own equipment, training and reports |
Alongside the cleaning itself, many buyers also need washroom hygiene services (sanitary bins, nappy bins, air care) and consumables (toilet roll, hand towels, soap, bin liners). Some cleaning companies supply these; others leave them to you or a separate supplier. Whichever way you go, write it down, because "who buys the toilet roll" is one of the most common arguments in cleaning contracts.
The rest of this guide explains the rules every workplace has to meet, why a school, a surgery and a warehouse need very different cleaning, and how to buy it well.
What does the law say about keeping a workplace clean?
In Great Britain, the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 say every workplace, and its furniture, furnishings and fittings, must be kept sufficiently clean, and waste mustn't be left to build up except in suitable containers. Cleaning itself must be done safely, including the use of chemicals under COSHH.
There's no single "cleaning law", but a few rules apply to almost every workplace:
- Keep it sufficiently clean. Regulation 9 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 requires every workplace and its furniture, furnishings and fittings to be kept sufficiently clean, and floors, walls and ceilings inside buildings to be capable of being kept clean. HSE's Approved Code of Practice explains that this means regular cleaning so dirt and refuse don't build up, and removing spillages and deposits as soon as possible. It also says the frequency and standard depend on the nature of the business, which is why a clinic and a warehouse are cleaned so differently.
- Don't let waste pile up. As far as reasonably practicable, waste mustn't be allowed to accumulate except in suitable receptacles.
- Toilets and washrooms. HSE's guidance says rooms with toilets or washing facilities should be well lit and kept clean, cleaned often and thoroughly enough, and that responsibility for cleaning should be clearly established, particularly where facilities are shared by more than one workplace.
- Clean safely. The same guidance says cleaning should be done by an effective and suitable method that doesn't create a health or safety risk, for example from dust or cleaning chemicals. The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH) require employers to plan, manage and monitor the use of hazardous substances, which can include some cleaning products.
- Floors and slips. HSE says slips and trips are the most common cause of injury at work. Its guidance includes cleaning up spills promptly, leaving smooth floors dry after cleaning (or keeping people off them until they're dry) and using the right cleaning method for the floor.
- Windows. Regulation 16 requires windows and skylights to be designed or constructed so that they can be cleaned safely. Cleaning at height brings in its own rules.
Some premises have extra rules on top: food businesses must keep food areas clean under food hygiene law, healthcare providers are inspected on infection prevention and control, schools must think about safeguarding for anyone working on site, and kitchens with extract systems need them kept clean as part of managing fire risk. Our guides by type of premises cover those.
Why does cleaning differ so much between types of premises?
Because the risks, the users and the rules differ. An office is about touch points, kitchens and toilets; a GP surgery is cleaned by risk category with audits; a school is cleaned around pupils and holidays with safeguarding checks; a commercial kitchen needs grease and fire risk managed. A good contractor writes a different specification for each.
The same cleaner with the same trolley can do a reasonable job in most places. But the specification, the checks and the timing change a lot:
| Premises | What's genuinely different |
|---|---|
| Offices | Desks, shared kitchens, meeting rooms and toilets; frequency driven by headcount and hybrid working patterns; usually cleaned early morning or evening; shared buildings split between landlord and tenant |
| Schools | Daily clean after pupils leave, big deep cleans in the holidays, safeguarding checks for anyone working on site, chemicals kept away from children, and extra cleaning during outbreaks |
| GP surgeries and clinics | Cleaned by functional risk category under NHS England's cleanliness standards, with set frequencies, regular audits and a clear split between what practice staff clean and what cleaners clean |
| Commercial kitchens | Daily cleaning by kitchen staff to food hygiene standards, plus specialist cleaning of extract canopies and ducts, where grease build-up is a fire risk |
| Warehouses and factories | Large floors cleaned by machine, high-level dust, forklift traffic, and production areas where cleaners must never work inside machinery |
| Communal areas in flats | Paid through service charges, residents around all day, and corridors and stairs that are also escape routes |
We're adding guides for more types of premises and specialist cleans. Each one explains what that place needs, not the same page with a different name on it.
Do you need a regular cleaning contract or a one-off clean?
If people use the premises every day, you need regular cleaning, usually on a contract with set hours. One-off cleans suit specific jobs: before moving in, after building work, after an incident, or a periodic deep clean on top of the regular contract.
Most workplaces need both. Think of it this way:
- A regular contract keeps the place clean day to day. It's usually a set number of cleaner hours or visits each week, a written specification of tasks, and a monthly price. Contracts often run for a year or more with a notice period, and the price may be reviewed when the National Living Wage rises each April.
- A one-off clean is a defined job with a defined end: a builders' clean before you move into a new unit, a deep clean before a school term, carpet cleaning, or a clean after a flood. It's priced as a job, not by the month.
- Periodic tasks sit in between. A good contract lists them (for example "carpets shampooed twice a year", "high-level dusting quarterly") so you know what's included and what will be charged as an extra.
If you're not sure, describe how the premises are used (how many people, which days, what kind of rooms) and let the cleaning company suggest a pattern. Then check that what they suggest matches the risks: a clinic can't go a week without its toilets being cleaned just because footfall is low on some days.
How much does commercial cleaning cost?
There's no official price list. Contractors work out how many cleaner hours your premises need from the size, layout, floor types, number of toilets and kitchens, and how often you want cleaning, then multiply by an hourly charge that has to cover wages (at least £12.71 an hour from April 2026), employer costs, supervision, materials and margin.
We don't publish "typical" prices, because there's no reliable public source for them and every building is different. What we can explain is how a quote is put together, so you can check one:
- Hours. The contractor estimates how long each task takes and how often it's done, and adds it up to a number of cleaner hours per visit or per week. Area matters, but so do desks, toilets, kitchens, stairs and how cluttered the space is.
- Pay. Cleaners aged 21 and over must be paid at least the National Living Wage: £12.71 an hour from 1 April 2026 and £13.21 from 1 April 2027. Some buyers require the voluntary real Living Wage, which for 2026-27 is £14.10 an hour outside London and £15.45 in London.
- On-costs. On top of pay, the employer pays National Insurance, pension contributions, holiday pay, sick pay and cover, plus training, uniforms, supervision and insurance.
- Materials and equipment. Chemicals, cloths, mops, vacuums and machines, and consumables such as toilet roll if they're included.
- Overheads and margin. Management, travel, admin and profit.
That's why a price that works out at little more than the minimum wage for the hours quoted should worry you: either the hours won't be worked or something else is being cut. Our guide to office cleaning costs works through examples with every assumption shown.
What should a cleaning specification include?
A cleaning specification lists every area, the tasks in each, how often they're done and the standard expected. Give every contractor the same specification and you'll get quotes you can actually compare.
If you ask three companies to "quote for cleaning the office", you'll get three different interpretations and three prices you can't compare. A specification fixes that. It should cover:
- Areas: each floor or zone, with rough sizes, floor types and anything unusual (stairs, glass partitions, a server room cleaners mustn't enter).
- Tasks and frequencies: daily, weekly, monthly and periodic tasks for each area.
- Times and access: when cleaning can happen, who holds keys and alarm codes, and any lone working.
- Consumables: who supplies soap, paper and bin liners, and how restocking works.
- Standards and checking: how quality will be checked (for example a monthly joint inspection), and what happens if standards slip.
- Extras: how one-off and periodic jobs are priced, and how holidays and bank holidays are handled.
Ask each contractor to tell you the hours per week they've allowed and the number of cleaners. Two quotes with very different hours for the same specification tell you something important.
What happens to the cleaners if you change cleaning company?
When a cleaning contract moves from one contractor to another, or from in-house to a contractor, it's normally a "service provision change" under TUPE. The cleaners who mainly work on your contract are likely to transfer to the new company with their existing terms and continuous employment.
This surprises many buyers. GOV.UK gives cleaning as an example of a service provision change: a service done in-house being given to a contractor, a contract being given to a new contractor, or the work being brought back in-house. Its own example says a cleaner whose employer decides to use an outside cleaning company instead is likely to be protected under TUPE.
In practice that means:
- the new contractor usually takes on the cleaners who are assigned to your contract, on their current terms;
- the outgoing contractor must give the new one information about those employees at least 4 weeks before the transfer;
- quotes from new contractors should say how they've allowed for any transferring staff, because the existing pay and hours affect their cost.
TUPE doesn't usually apply to one-off or short-term jobs, such as a single deep clean. Employment law is detailed, so take advice if you're unsure: ACAS has free guidance.
What should you check before choosing a commercial cleaning company?
Check they can cover your area reliably, that they have the right insurance and vetting for your premises, how they train and supervise staff, how they'll cover sickness and holidays, and how quality will be checked. Ask for the hours and staffing behind the price.
Questions worth asking any cleaning company before you sign:
- Who will clean, and for how long? Hours per visit, number of cleaners, and who supervises them.
- What happens when your cleaner is off? How cover works for holidays and sickness, and how quickly.
- How do you check quality? Inspections, audit scores, a named contact, and how complaints are handled.
- What insurance do you hold? Ask to see public liability and employer's liability certificates, and for key-holding if they hold your keys.
- How are staff vetted and trained? This matters most in schools, healthcare and anywhere with sensitive information. Ask what checks they carry out and what training they give (some cleaners hold industry training such as BICSc qualifications).
- What's in the price? Materials, consumables, periodic tasks, bank holidays and price rises each April.
- What are the contract terms? Length, notice period, and what happens to staff at the end (TUPE).
Large organisations often prefer national or regional contractors that can cover several sites under one contract; small sites are often well served by a local team or franchise. Either can be the right answer: what matters is whether they can cover your postcode reliably and meet your specification.
How does Business Cleaning Hub work?
We publish free, independent guides to commercial cleaning. If you'd like a quote, fill in the form and we'll pass your enquiry to one commercial cleaning company from our partners that covers your postcode. We don't clean ourselves, and you're under no obligation.
We're not a cleaning company and we don't sell cleaning. We write guides that explain what different workplaces need, checked against official sources, so you can buy cleaning with your eyes open.
If you want a quote, the form asks a few questions about your premises (type, rough size, how often you want cleaning, and whether it's a regular contract or a one-off). We use your postcode to pass your enquiry to one commercial cleaning company from our partners that covers your area, so you won't be called by a string of companies. Our partners include national and regional contract cleaners and cleaning franchise networks. We may be paid for the introduction. Any price and contract are agreed directly between you and them.
Our privacy policy explains exactly what happens to your details.
Related guides
Commercial cleaning: frequently asked questions
What is commercial cleaning?
Commercial cleaning is cleaning business and public premises such as offices, schools, surgeries, shops, kitchens and warehouses, usually by a contract cleaning company. It includes regular cleaning, periodic tasks like carpet and floor care, and specialist jobs such as kitchen extract cleaning.
Is there a legal standard for how clean a workplace must be?
In Great Britain, the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 require every workplace to be kept sufficiently clean. HSE's guidance says the frequency and standard depend on the nature of the business. Some premises, such as food businesses and healthcare, have extra hygiene rules.
How often should a workplace be cleaned?
There's no fixed legal frequency. Most offices with daily occupancy have toilets, kitchens and bins done every working day and floors and desks daily or a few times a week, with periodic tasks less often. Higher-risk premises such as clinics and kitchens need more frequent and more thorough cleaning.
How much does commercial cleaning cost?
It depends on how many cleaner hours your premises need and the hourly charge, which must cover at least the National Living Wage (£12.71 an hour from April 2026) plus employer costs, materials, supervision and margin. There's no official price list, so compare quotes on hours and specification, not just the total.
Do cleaners transfer to the new company if I change contractor?
Usually, yes. Changing cleaning contractor is normally a service provision change under TUPE, so the cleaners mainly assigned to your contract are likely to transfer to the new contractor on their existing terms. TUPE doesn't usually apply to one-off jobs.
Who is responsible for cleaning in a shared office building?
Normally the landlord or managing agent is responsible for the common parts, such as the reception, stairs and shared toilets, and each tenant for its own space. HSE's guidance says tenants and the landlord should co-operate and responsibility for cleaning shared facilities should be clearly established, so check your lease and agree it in writing.
Does a cleaning company need to do COSHH assessments?
A cleaning company that employs cleaners must manage the risks from the substances its staff use, which under COSHH includes hazardous cleaning chemicals. Ask a contractor how it assesses and controls those risks, and tell it about any hazards in your premises.
Can I get a one-off clean rather than a contract?
Yes. One-off cleans suit jobs like a builders' clean before you move in, a deep clean before a new term, or carpet cleaning. They're priced as a job rather than monthly. Regular cleaning is usually better on a contract with a written specification.
Does Business Cleaning Hub provide cleaning?
No. We're an independent guide. If you ask us to, we pass your enquiry to one commercial cleaning company from our partners that covers your postcode, and you agree any price directly with them. There's no obligation.
Sources
We checked the facts on this page against these sources on 12 November 2026:
- The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, regulation 9 (legislation.gov.uk)
- HSE: Workplace health, safety and welfare. Approved Code of Practice and guidance (L24)
- HSE: COSHH, what the law says
- GOV.UK: National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates
- Living Wage Foundation: What is the real Living Wage?
- GOV.UK: Business transfers, takeovers and TUPE