How to Win Commercial Cleaning Contracts Without a Sales Team
Most advice on winning cleaning contracts is American, or written by someone selling tender alerts. Both miss what changed in Britain on 24 February 2025.
That was the day the Procurement Act 2023 took over public buying. Most small public jobs can no longer make you pass a pre-qualification stage. Councils can now ring-fence them for local firms. And any public contract over £30,000 (£12,000 for central government) that is advertised must appear on one free GOV.UK site.
The short version
- Start private and local: offices, managing agents, surgeries, small schools. One good site under your belt beats ten speculative tenders.
- Public work is now advertised free on Find a Tender. You do not need a paid alert service to see it.
- Below-threshold council and government contracts cannot use a pre-qualification wall (schools excepted), and can be reserved for local firms, for SMEs, or both.
- Most cleaning contracts that change hands come with the outgoing firm's staff under TUPE. Price with their wages, not yours.
- Nobody publishes a credible average contract value. Work it out from hours, and price every on-cost.
What is the best way to get commercial cleaning contracts?
Win small private contracts close to home first, then use them as proof for bigger ones. A three-evening office clean found through Google or a referral gives you reviews, references, a site to show, and staff who know the job. Tenders ask for exactly that evidence, so it has to come first.
The order matters because buyers are nervous about keys, alarm codes and a Monday of overflowing bins. References from a similar building settle that faster than any proposal.
So the route is simple. Be findable locally. Win a few small sites. Then read tenders, starting small.
Where do private cleaning contracts actually come from?
From people who already manage buildings and need one less problem. Office managers, managing agents looking after blocks and business units, GP and dental practices, nurseries and small independent schools. Most of them find cleaners the same way you find a supplier: a quick search, a recommendation, or whoever they already trust.
Offices and managing agents
A managing agent is worth more than any single office, because one good job leads to the next block on their books. Find the agents whose boards are on buildings near you and ask what it takes to join their approved contractor list.
GP surgeries and dental practices
GP partnerships are, in the words of the Nuffield Trust's 2025 review of the partnership model, "independent autonomous businesses" contracting with the NHS. In practice that means a practice manager, not a procurement department, usually decides who cleans.
They care about infection control above price. Show colour-coded equipment, clinical procedures and trained staff, and charge for that specialism.
Schools
State schools and trusts can buy through the Department for Education's Get help buying for schools service, which lists a DfE-approved cleaning services framework running to June 2027. Getting onto a national framework is hard for a small firm.
Local knowledge is your edge. Holiday deep cleans are a way in.
Being found when somebody searches
Buyers do search. An office manager whose cleaner has just quit types "office cleaning" and the town name into Google, in a hurry. Whoever shows up with a clear commercial page gets the call.
That search needs a commercial cleaning page, separate from your domestic work, naming the building types you clean and the areas you cover. How to build a service page that ranks covers the structure. On your Google Business Profile, choose the category that matches the commercial work you want more of.
How do UK cleaning tenders work since the Procurement Act?
Since 24 February 2025, public bodies covered by the Procurement Act publish new opportunities on Find a Tender, a free GOV.UK service. You register once, store your company details, and bid. Small contracts have lighter rules, and on larger ones you are owed feedback on your final bid.
That date comes from the Cabinet Office's short guide for suppliers, updated June 2026. Scotland has its own procurement law, and Welsh bodies follow some rules of their own, so check separately if you work there.
Contracts Finder is not where new work appears
Under PPN 019, Contracts Finder now only carries notices for procurements that began under the old 2015 regulations. New below-threshold opportunities must go on Find a Tender.
Search it free by the CPV code for office cleaning services, 90919200, or cleaning services, 90910000, plus your region. Paid tender alerts mostly repackage this public data.
The numbers that decide which rules apply
The 2026 thresholds in PPN 023, including VAT, are £135,018 for central government services contracts and £207,720 for councils and other sub-central bodies. Above those, the full process applies.
Below them, the GOV.UK below-threshold guidance says a notice must be published on the central platform once a contract is worth £12,000 for central government or £30,000 for anyone else, including VAT.
| Contract value (inc. VAT) | Central government | Councils and others |
|---|---|---|
| Must be published if advertised | from £12,000 | from £30,000 |
| Full above-threshold rules | from £135,018 | from £207,720 |
Why small tenders just got easier
First, below-threshold buyers "may not restrict the submission of tenders" by assessing suitability up front, so the old pre-qualification questionnaire cannot be used to screen you out. They can still check you at award stage. Schools are exempt from this rule, so a school can still ask for a pre-qualification questionnaire.
Second, councils in England can now reserve below-threshold competitions for suppliers based in their area and bordering counties, for SMEs, or both. It is voluntary, but when a council reserves by location, distant national firms are locked out.
Getting paid
Section 68 of the Procurement Act 2023 implies 30-day payment terms into public contracts, and section 73 pushes them down to subcontracts. One honest catch: both sections exclude contracts awarded by schools. Agree payment terms with a school in writing.
What will a buyer check before they sign?
Proof you are legal, insured, safe with chemicals, and able to take over the building without chaos. Expect to show insurance certificates, COSHH assessments, a health and safety accreditation, training records, DBS checks where the site needs them, and references. Private buyers ask for less, but ask for the same things.
Insurance. Employers' liability cover is a legal requirement once you employ anyone, for at least £5 million, according to GOV.UK. Buyers also ask for public liability cover and usually name the level.
DBS. Say which level of check your staff hold and when it was done. A school or surgery will ask.
COSHH. The HSE says the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 require employers to assess the risks from hazardous substances, prevent or control exposure, and train staff. HSE's dermatitis health surveillance guidance lists cleaning among the high-risk occupational groups. Buyers want the assessments and the product data sheets in the bid.
An SSIP certificate. SSIP is the umbrella for health and safety schemes such as CHAS and SafeContractor. Pass one and most others accept it. Get one when a buyer you want asks. Do not buy three.
Training. The British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICSc) is the main UK training body for cleaning operatives.
TUPE: the part nobody warns you about
Win a contract from another cleaning firm and you will usually inherit their cleaners. GOV.UK lists "a contract ends and is given to a new contractor" as a TUPE service provision change, and says their terms and conditions transfer with them.
The outgoing employer must hand over employee liability information at least four weeks before the transfer. In a tender, ask for the anonymised staff list before you price. Their wage rates and contracted hours are your costs from day one.
How much is a commercial cleaning contract worth?
Nobody publishes a credible UK average, and any figure you have seen online almost certainly came from a company selling something. A contract is worth its weekly hours, multiplied by your charge-out rate, multiplied by 52, multiplied by the years it runs. Work it out from the specification, not from a blog.
The better research is free. Contract details notices on Find a Tender show what public buyers near you paid for similar buildings. It is the closest thing to market data this trade has.
How do you price a cleaning bid without losing money?
Start from the legal wage floor, add every cost that follows each hour worked, then add supervision, supplies, travel and profit. A price built on the hourly wage alone will lose money. The on-costs are not optional and they are not small.
The floor is the National Living Wage, £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over from April 2026 (GOV.UK). Some buyers specify the Living Wage Foundation's voluntary real Living Wage instead: £14.10, or £15.45 in London, for 2026-27. The Foundation announced those rates on 15 October 2026 and gives accredited employers until 1 May 2027 to pay them. Read the specification before you build the price.
These rates move. The legal floor changes every April and the real Living Wage is reset every autumn. Check the current rate before every bid.
Here is what sits on top, using a cleaner on 20 hours a week at the April 2026 rate of £12.71. The percentages are our arithmetic on 2026-27 GOV.UK figures, not a published benchmark.
| Cost | Rule | Roughly adds |
|---|---|---|
| Holiday cover | 5.6 weeks paid holiday, so 52 weeks paid for 46.4 worked | 12% |
| Employer NI | 15% above £96 a week, holiday pay included | 10.5% |
| Pension | 3% of earnings above £6,240 a year, holiday pay included | 1.8% |
That is about 24%. The method: weekly pay of £254.20, plus £23.73 employer NI and £4.03 pension, is £281.96. You pay that for 52 weeks but get 46.4 weeks of work, so each hour worked costs roughly £15.80 before a single bottle of chemical, a supervisor visit or a van mile.
Employment Allowance, £10,500 for 2026 to 2027, can offset employer NI if you are eligible. It is not available if a sole director is your only employee paying NI. Treat it as a buffer, not a discount you pass on.
Then add sickness cover, equipment, consumables, management time and a margin. If the total loses to a rival, let it.
How do you write a cleaning proposal that wins?
Answer the buyer's worries in their order, in their words. A good proposal shows you understood the building, explains how the first month will go, names who does the work, and prices it clearly. It reads like a plan for their site, not a brochure for your firm.
For a private client, keep it to a few pages:
- Site summary. Their building, their hours, their problem, in their language.
- Specification. Daily, weekly and periodic tasks, as a table.
- Mobilisation. Keys, alarm codes, the first week, the named supervisor.
- Proof. Two references from similar buildings, insurance, COSHH, accreditation.
- Price. Monthly figure, what it includes, how often it is reviewed.
For a tender, answer every question in order, stay inside the word counts, and treat the scoring criteria as the marking scheme. On larger tenders you are owed an assessment of your final bid. Read it. It is free coaching.
What to do this week
- Register on Find a Tender and save a search for cleaning codes in your region. It costs nothing.
- Read five recent award notices for cleaning near you and note what buyers paid.
- Build your bid pack as one PDF: insurance, COSHH assessments, method statements, references.
- Rebuild your hourly price with holiday, NI and pension included, and check it against the real Living Wage.
- Ask for TUPE information on any contract that already has a cleaner, before you price.
- Check your commercial cleaning page exists and is separate from your domestic work.
At Business Opt we see that last one constantly: firms good enough to hold office contracts, invisible when an office manager searches.
Tenders reward paperwork. Private work rewards being easy to find. Get both in order and you do not need a sales team.