Office Cleaning Cost per Square Metre: How to Work It Out (UK, 2026)

You know your office as "about 400 square metres, two washrooms and a kitchen". A cleaning company quotes you "£20 an hour". To compare the two, you need to know how many hours your office takes to clean.

This post gives you the formula, the planning rates behind it, and five worked examples. Every figure uses our standard commercial rate of £20 + VAT per cleaner per hour (£24 including VAT), with a 4-hour minimum per visit.

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The Short Answer

For a routine evening clean of a typical open-plan office, budget roughly:

• £0.08 to £0.13 + VAT per square metre, per clean, once your office is large enough to need 4 hours or more per visit (about 600 m² and up).
• £80 + VAT per visit for anything smaller, because the 4-hour minimum sets the price, not the floor area.
• About £2.60 to £3.30 + VAT per square metre, per month for a medium or large office cleaned every weekday.

The rest of this post shows where those numbers come from, so you can check them against your own building.

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The Formula

Cleaning time depends on three things: how much floor there is, how many washrooms and kitchens there are, and how often you want it done.

Hours per visit = (floor area ÷ cleaning rate) + washrooms + kitchens

Cost per visit = the greater of hours per visit or 4 hours, × £20 + VAT

Monthly cost = cost per visit × visits per week × 4.33

The 4.33 converts weekly to monthly (52 weeks ÷ 12 months).

Step 1: Floor area ÷ cleaning rate

The cleaning rate is how many square metres one cleaner covers in an hour on a routine clean: emptying bins, vacuuming, wiping desks and touch points, and tidying meeting rooms. These are the planning rates we start from before a site visit:

Office layout	Planning rate	Cost per m² per hour of cleaning
Open-plan, light use, hot desks cleared	250 m² per hour	£0.08 + VAT
Mixed open-plan with meeting rooms	200 m² per hour	£0.10 + VAT
Lots of separate offices, heavy use or hard floors needing mopping	150 m² per hour	£0.13 + VAT

These are starting points, not promises. A cluttered office with paper on every desk is slower than a clear-desk office of the same size. Hard floors take longer than carpet because they need mopping as well as vacuuming. A site visit sets the real figure.

Step 2: Add washrooms and kitchens

Washrooms and kitchens take far longer per square metre than open floor, so we count them separately:

Area	Time to add per visit
Each washroom (toilets, basins, mirrors, floor, restock)	15 minutes
Each kitchen or tea point (surfaces, sink, dishwasher, appliances, floor)	20 minutes
Reception or entrance with glass doors	10 minutes

Step 3: Apply the minimum and multiply by frequency

If the total comes to under 4 hours, the visit is charged at 4 hours. Above that, you pay for the hours the clean takes. Multiply by visits per week, then by 4.33 for the monthly figure.

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How Floor Area Changes the Price per Square Metre

This is the part most cost guides leave out. Because of the 4-hour minimum, small offices pay far more per square metre than large ones. The table uses the mixed-layout rate of 200 m² per hour and leaves out washrooms and kitchens to show the effect clearly.

Floor area	Cleaning time	Hours charged	Cost per visit	Cost per m² per visit
100 m²	0.5 hours	4 hours (minimum)	£80 + VAT	£0.80
250 m²	1.25 hours	4 hours (minimum)	£80 + VAT	£0.32
500 m²	2.5 hours	4 hours (minimum)	£80 + VAT	£0.16
800 m²	4 hours	4 hours	£80 + VAT	£0.10
1,000 m²	5 hours	5 hours	£100 + VAT	£0.10
2,000 m²	10 hours	10 hours	£200 + VAT	£0.10

Once a visit takes 4 hours or more, the cost per square metre levels out at the cleaning rate. Below that, you're paying for time on site, so per-square-metre comparisons stop being useful.

What this means for a small office: fewer, longer visits usually give better value than short daily ones. One 4-hour clean a week, or two, often covers a 150 m² office properly. Five daily visits would mean paying the minimum five times.

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Five Worked Examples at £20 + VAT per Hour

All monthly figures use 52 weeks ÷ 12 months (about 4.33 weeks per month).

1. Small office, 120 m², 12 desks, cleaned once a week

• Floor: 120 ÷ 200 = 0.6 hours
• 1 washroom + 1 kitchenette: 0.25 + 0.33 = 0.58 hours
• Total: 1.2 hours, so charged at the 4-hour minimum

£80 + VAT per visit · £347 + VAT a month (£416 inc. VAT)

The spare time on a 4-hour visit goes on the jobs that never get done on short visits: skirting boards, chair bases, inside the fridge and microwave, desk phones and keyboards.

2. Small office, 120 m², cleaned twice a week

Same office, charged at 4 hours per visit, two visits a week.

£160 + VAT a week · £693 + VAT a month (£832 inc. VAT)

3. Medium office, 600 m², about 60 desks, cleaned every weekday

• Floor: 600 ÷ 200 = 3 hours
• 4 washrooms + 1 kitchen: 1 + 0.33 = 1.33 hours
• Total: 4.33 hours, rounded to 4.5 hours

£90 + VAT per visit · £450 + VAT a week · £1,950 + VAT a month (£2,340 inc. VAT)

That's about £3.25 + VAT per m² per month.

4. Large open-plan office, 1,500 m², cleaned every weekday

• Floor: 1,500 ÷ 250 = 6 hours
• 8 washrooms + 2 kitchens: 2 + 0.67 = 2.67 hours
• Total: 8.67 hours, which works out as two cleaners for 4.5 hours each (9 hours)

£180 + VAT per visit · £900 + VAT a week · £3,900 + VAT a month (£4,680 inc. VAT)

That's about £2.60 + VAT per m² per month.

5. Same large office, cleaned on occupancy days only (Tuesday to Thursday)

Many London offices are near-empty on Mondays and Fridays. Cleaning fully on the three busy days and leaving the quiet days out:

£540 + VAT a week · £2,340 + VAT a month (£2,808 inc. VAT)

That saves £1,560 + VAT a month against Example 4. Whether that works depends on how your office is used. A building with visitors on Mondays still needs a clean on Monday morning. We wrote more about occupancy-based cleaning in our 2026 trends guide.

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Square Feet Instead of Square Metres?

Many London leases and floor plans are in square feet. One square metre is 10.764 square feet.

	Per m²	Per sq ft
Cost per clean, mixed layout (200 m² per hour)	£0.10 + VAT	£0.0093 + VAT
Monthly, medium office (Example 3)	£3.25 + VAT	£0.30 + VAT
Yearly, medium office (Example 3)	£39.00 + VAT	£3.62 + VAT
Yearly, large office (Example 4)	£31.20 + VAT	£2.90 + VAT

Don't know your floor area? A rough rule is 8 to 12 m² per desk, once you count walkways, meeting rooms and kitchens. A 30-desk office is probably somewhere between 240 and 360 m².

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What the Hourly Rate Covers, and What Usually Costs Extra

The £20 + VAT per cleaner per hour pays for a trained cleaner's time on your premises. Before comparing quotes, check what each one includes:

• Routine cleaning. Bins, vacuuming, desks, touch points, washrooms and kitchens. This is what the examples above cover.
• Periodic jobs. Carpet deep cleaning, internal windows, high-level dusting and hard-floor scrubbing are usually quoted separately, monthly or quarterly.
• Consumables. Toilet roll, hand towels, soap and bin liners are normally either supplied by you or added at cost. Ask which.
• Equipment and products. Confirm in writing who provides them.
• Out-of-hours work. Evening cleaning is standard. Weekend or overnight visits may be priced differently.

Your written quote should list each of these, so there's nothing left to argue about later.

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Why Hourly Quotes Are Easier to Check Than Per-Square-Metre Quotes

Some companies quote a flat price per square metre. It sounds simpler, but it hides the number that matters most: how many hours someone actually spends in your building.

With an hourly quote you can check it. If the contract says 4.5 hours a night and your access logs show the cleaner leaving after 2.5, you know there's a problem. With a per-square-metre quote, nothing tells you the hours have been cut.

Wages make up most of a cleaning company's costs, and the London Living Wage rose to £15.45 an hour in October 2026. A quote that looks cheap per square metre usually means fewer hours, not a more efficient cleaner.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How much does office cleaning cost per square metre in the UK?

For a routine evening clean at £20 + VAT per cleaner per hour, office cleaning costs about £0.08 to £0.13 + VAT per square metre per visit, depending on layout. That applies once a visit takes 4 hours or more, which is roughly 600 m² and above. Smaller offices are charged the 4-hour minimum of £80 + VAT per visit, so the cost per square metre is higher.

How long does it take to clean an office?

One cleaner covers roughly 150 to 250 square metres of office floor an hour on a routine clean, depending on layout and clutter. Add about 15 minutes per washroom and 20 minutes per kitchen. A 600 m² office with four washrooms and a kitchen takes about 4.5 hours.

How much does office cleaning cost per month?

At £20 + VAT per cleaner per hour, a small office cleaned once a week for 4 hours costs about £347 + VAT a month. A 600 m² office cleaned every weekday costs about £1,950 + VAT a month. A 1,500 m² office cleaned every weekday costs about £3,900 + VAT a month.

Is it cheaper to clean an office daily or weekly?

For small offices, fewer and longer visits are usually cheaper, because each visit has a 4-hour minimum. For offices large enough to need 4 hours or more per visit, the cost scales with the hours needed. In that case the saving comes from matching visits to the days the office is actually busy.

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Get Your Own Figure

The formula gets you within the right range. The exact figure needs someone to walk the building, count the washrooms and see how the space is used.

Book a free site assessment and we'll send a written quote within 24 hours. It shows the hours per visit, the rate and what's included, so you can check it against the sums above. You can also see our office cleaning service in London and full price list.

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All prices are St Anne's commercial rate of £20 + VAT per cleaner per hour with a 4-hour minimum per visit, correct at October 2026. Cleaning rates per square metre are planning figures. Your actual quote depends on a site assessment, layout, floor types, clutter, access and scope.