Can you afford your first hire?

Most owners answer “can I afford to hire?” with a feeling. That’s how I lost £60,000 in a year. Here’s the check I use now.

It’s a four-box check. If all four boxes are ticked, you can afford the hire. If one isn’t, you know exactly what to fix first, and it’s rarely “never”.

Box 1: Do you need help?

Before the money, ask whether you’re carrying too much. Tick everything that’s true this month:

Three or more means you’re ready to start looking at help. It doesn’t mean you can afford it yet. That’s what boxes two to four are for.

It also helps to put a price on not hiring. If you’re turning away just one £150 to £250 deep clean a month because you can’t fit it in, that’s £1,800 to £3,000 a year walking out of the door. Add the quotes you didn’t follow up and the days you needed to rest after a fourteen-hour week, and the true cost of doing it all yourself is often bigger than the cost of the hire.

Box 2: What will they really cost?

This is where most owners go wrong, because they compare the hourly rate they charge with the hourly rate they pay. They’re not the same sum.

Take a cleaner on 20 hours a week at this year’s National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour. It rises to £13.21 on 1 April 2027, which adds about £600 a year at 20 hours; 2027/28 employer thresholds aren’t published yet, so every figure here uses this year’s:

That’s about £1,220 a month. And because everyone gets 5.6 weeks of paid holiday, you pay for 52 weeks but get about 46 weeks of work, which is 928 hours. So each hour they actually work costs you around £15.80.

Not every hour you pay for is an hour you can bill either. Travel between jobs, gaps in the day and waiting for keys all come out of it. On a residential round, 80% billed is good going.

If your business can claim the Employment Allowance, which can cover up to £10,500 of employer National Insurance a year, the cost per hour worked falls to about £14.50. Ask your accountant whether you’re eligible. (Some businesses aren’t, for example a limited company where the director is the only person on the payroll.)

What if you pay the Real Living Wage?

The Real Living Wage is a voluntary rate, set by the Living Wage Foundation. You only pay it if you choose to, for example if your business is accredited. The 2026/27 rates were announced on 15 October 2026: £14.10 an hour across the UK and £15.45 in London. Accredited employers have until 1 May 2027 to pay them.

Same 20 hours, same sums:

It isn’t a reason to hold off. It’s a number to know before you say yes to it: at 20 hours a week, the Real Living Wage adds about £1,700 a year outside London and about £3,400 in London. If you do pay it, price for it. The rest of this article works the same way, you just start from a higher cost per hour.

Will a new cleaner pay for themselves?

Use the figures above at £30 an hour. 928 hours worked becomes about 742 billed hours, which is £22,260 of work. Take off their £14,660 and about £1,300 for products and fuel, and you’re left with around £6,300 a year towards your overheads and profit. About £120 a week. A real contribution, but a lot less than the gap between £30 and £12.71 suggests.

What if they are replacing you?

If they’re taking over your own cleans, you aren’t adding work. You were already billing those hours. What changes is that you now pay £14,660 a year for them, and the hours you get back have to earn more than that.

A fortnightly customer at £70 a clean is worth £1,820 a year, so you’d need about eight new regulars to cover the hire. Or a price rise across your round. Or one decent commercial contract. All doable with 20 hours a week back, if you spend them on growth.

Box 3: Can your cash carry the gap?

You pay a new cleaner before the work they do is invoiced, let alone paid. Add the weeks of training, shadowing and slower first cleans, and there’s a gap that has nothing to do with whether the hire is a good idea.

A good rule: have six weeks of their wages and employer costs in the bank before they start. For the 20-hour cleaner above, that’s about £1,700 at the National Living Wage, or about £1,900 at the Real Living Wage. If you also owe a tax bill or VAT in the next quarter, count those separately. Money that’s already spoken for isn’t buffer.

Also budget for the start-up costs people forget: right-to-work checks, a DBS check if they’ll be in customers’ homes, uniform, kit, and the time it takes you to train them. And you need employers’ liability insurance in place as soon as you employ anyone. It’s a legal requirement.

Box 4: What will you do with the time?

This is the box that decides whether the hire pays for itself, and the one that most owners can’t answer.

Write down, before you advertise, exactly what you will do with the hours you get back. For example:

• Two hours on Monday to chase every outstanding quote.
• Half a day a week on the sales activity that wins new regulars.
• One hour to review your prices and your least profitable customers.
• A day off.

That last one counts. A business that needs you every hour of every day isn’t a business yet, it’s a job. But the plan has to exist on paper. If the freed-up time just goes on catching up on admin, you’ve bought yourself a more expensive version of the same week.

What if the answer is “not yet”?

It means one of two things, and both are fixable.

1. Put your prices up first

On a £60,000 round, a 10% rise is an extra £6,000 a year, with no extra work. It’s often the difference between a hire that breaks even and one that doesn’t. See Stop using industry standards if you want to win for how to work out the right price.

2. Start with a four-hour hire

Nobody says your first hire has to be 20 hours. Eight hours a week costs about £5,300 a year on the same maths, because below the pension band you pay almost no employer National Insurance and no pension at all. Four to eight hours is enough to take your most regular, easiest cleans, like a Monday maintenance clean or a weekly regular, and give you a half day back.

Choose jobs that are regular, familiar and non-urgent. Run a paid trial first, tell the customer someone will be shadowing, and have a task list ready. Treat the trial as a way to watch how they work, not to judge them. Pay them fairly even if it’s a no.

What is the four-box summary?

What should you do before they start?

Once the sums say yes, the next risk is hiring without systems. That’s how you end up training people on a customer’s premises while you’re too tired to supervise properly. Have a written job description, a consistent interview, a proper induction and your standards written down before day one. The order to hire in, and what to ask at interview, is in Who to hire first as you grow your cleaning business. And if your team already feels like it doesn’t take the business seriously, start with this one.

When I rebuilt Mackies after the £60k year, I started with a training portal, then interview and onboarding templates, compliance tracking and kit logs. Years later, all of that became the Staff tab inside Cadi. And the sums in this article? That’s what the Money tab is for: your margin, your tax pot, and what’s genuinely left after both, so a hire is something you’ve planned rather than something you risk.

Common questions about employing a cleaner

How much does it cost to employ a cleaner in the UK in 2026?

A cleaner working 20 hours a week at the National Living Wage of £12.71 costs about £14,660 a year: £13,218 in pay, £1,233 employer National Insurance and £209 workplace pension. That is about £1,220 a month, before products, insurance and your own time.

What is the National Living Wage for cleaners?

It is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over from 1 April 2026, and it rises to £13.21 from 1 April 2027. Younger workers have lower minimum rates, which you can check on GOV.UK.

Do I have to pay the Real Living Wage?

No. The Real Living Wage is voluntary and set by the Living Wage Foundation. The 2026/27 rates are £14.10 an hour across the UK and £15.45 in London. At 20 hours a week it adds about £1,700 a year outside London and about £3,400 in London.

How much employer National Insurance will I pay on a cleaner?

From April 2025 employers pay 15% on pay above £5,000 a year per employee. For a 20-hour cleaner on £13,218 that is £1,233. The Employment Allowance can take up to £10,500 off your bill if you are eligible.

Do I have to pay into a pension for a cleaner?

Usually yes. Automatic enrolment applies to eligible workers earning over £10,000 a year, and the employer minimum is 3% of earnings between £6,240 and £50,270. For a 20-hour cleaner at the National Living Wage that is about £209 a year.

How many hours should a first cleaner work?

You do not need to start at 20 hours. Eight hours a week costs about £5,300 a year because you pay almost no employer National Insurance and no pension below the thresholds. Four to eight hours is enough to take your most regular, easiest cleans.

What should I charge per hour to break even on a cleaner?

About £21.50 an hour at the National Living Wage, or £23.80 at the Real Living Wage outside London. That is the cost of each hour actually worked, divided by the share of hours you can bill (80%), plus about £1.75 an hour for products and fuel.

Rhianna