For most UK businesses, outsourcing commercial cleaning works out cheaper and more reliable than employing cleaners in-house. Outsourcing turns recruitment, holiday and sickness cover, training, equipment and compliance into one fixed monthly fee; an in-house team leaves you carrying all of that yourself. Bottom line: outsource unless cleaning is genuinely core to what you do.
What each model actually means
In-house cleaning means you employ the cleaners directly: they are on your payroll, you manage their rotas, buy the machines and chemicals, run the training, and cover every absence. Outsourced cleaning means a contractor like Optus Glean UK employs the staff and delivers an agreed specification for a fixed monthly fee, absorbing the recruitment, cover, equipment and compliance burden.
The honest test is whether cleaning is a distraction or a core competence. For an office, warehouse, clinic or retail unit it is a distraction — so the case for outsourcing is strong. For a business that sells cleaning, it is core, and in-house makes sense.
The real cost of in-house cleaning
The wage is only the start. On top of the £12.71 National Living Wage (or £13.45 Real Living Wage where a client or tender requires it) you pay employer's National Insurance, pension, holiday pay (a 12.07% uplift on hours worked), and Statutory Sick Pay — which from April 2026 is payable from day one with no waiting days. Then add machines, chemicals, consumables, PPE, COSHH management, and the manager's time spent covering absence. Those on-costs are exactly what a contractor's fixed fee already contains.
Cover is where in-house usually breaks
The single biggest weakness of an in-house team is cover. When your one cleaner is off sick or on holiday, the building does not get cleaned — and finding a temp at short notice is your problem. A contract provider builds cover in: a named primary cleaner plus a named relief, so the clean still happens. See why directly-employed teams with built-in cover matter.
Compliance and the VAT angle
As an employer of cleaners you own the compliance: COSHH assessments, risk assessments, DBS/Disclosure Scotland/AccessNI vetting where the role needs it, and Employers' Liability insurance (legally compulsory, £5m minimum). Outsourcing hands that to the contractor. The one point in-house's favour: commercial cleaning is standard-rated at 20% VAT, so a VAT-registered contractor adds VAT you may not fully reclaim if your business is partly exempt. For most fully-taxable businesses that VAT is recoverable, so it is neutral.
When in-house still wins
In-house can be the right call for very large single sites with round-the-clock needs, for high-security environments where you want total control of who is on site, or where cleaning is part of your product. Even then, many such operators outsource periodic and specialist work (deep cleans, windows, exterior and deep cleaning) while keeping a small daily core in-house — a hybrid model.
In-house vs outsourced cleaning, compared
| Factor | In-house team | Outsourced contract |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Wage plus NI, pension, holiday pay, SSP, equipment, consumables and management time | One fixed monthly fee covering all on-costs; 20% VAT added (usually reclaimable) |
| Control | Direct day-to-day control of staff and tasks | Control via a documented specification and audits, not line management |
| Reliability / cover | You must find cover for every absence yourself | Named cleaner plus named relief; cover is built into the fee |
| Compliance | You own COSHH, vetting, insurance and H&S | Contractor holds COSHH, vetting, insurance and accreditations |
| Best for | Cleaning-is-core businesses; very large single sites | Most offices, clinics, retail, industrial and multi-site businesses |