Special Report
A Cleaning Career Houses, offices, factories, shops and public areas all have one thing in common: they need to be regularly cleaned and that needs people to do it. Although most people do clean their own homes, there’s a significant demand for domestic cleaners. WHY BECOME A CLEANER? The work has flexible hours and offers a premium rate of pay. For a job which may be viewed as relatively unskilled – there’s no such thing as a cleaning degree - pay rates are well over the minimum wage. Provided you are trustworthy, reliable and good at what you do, you’ll always be able to find work. SELF-EMPLOYMENT At first glance this seems ideal. You set your own pay rate and you choose when to work. But anyone who’s self-employed knows it’s not quite as simple as that. You will have to visit each potential customer to see what their requirement is and come up with a mutually acceptable amount of time to do the job. You need to agree what your duties do and don’t include and you need to be prepared to accept short notice changes to your cleaning day, criticism of your work, cancellations, finding new customers and dealing with your own tax and national insurance. Your clients can usually terminate the agreement with no notice. WORKING FOR A COMPANY This option removes all the self-employment hassles although it may be a bit less flexible in that you are
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likely to be asked to commit to regular shifts. But you’ll have full employment rights including sick pay, holiday and pension. If you want to do commercial cleaning – shops and offices for example – you’ll almost certainly need to be with a company. THE CASH ECONOMY Let’s not pretend otherwise; many cleaners don’t declare their income. They expect to be paid cash means they don’t have to pay tax and reduces the cost to their clients. But if you do this, the benefit is all with the person you are cleaning for. That is, if your rate is high enough to cover the tax bill, the take home pay is the same amount. Furthermore if you’re being serious about this as a way to earn a living, ‘cash only’ means you could ultimately lose out. The lockdowns of the last couple of years really highlighted this. People who had been operating in the cash economy suddenly found themselves with no income and with no tax records to be able to claim furlough pay. ARE YOU GOOD AT THIS? If you see cleaning as a quick way to make a bit of money but you aren’t that good at it, you really won’t last. A householder may overlook dust and a few cobwebs when they do their own cleaning, but if they are paying for it, you can bet they’ll expect much higher standards. Again if you are working for a company, you’ll have the benefit of training which will stand you in good stead for a long satisfying career.
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