According to the BISC Cleaning Industry Report, in 2022, the number of cleaning companies has increased against a UK backdrop of all new businesses decreasing.

This can be attributed to the need to improve a public-facing service post-Covid, where cleaning teams are now part of rebuilding public confidence and regularly sanitised high usage areas.

The Cleaning and Hygiene Industry is made up of 4 key subsectors, these are:

• Waste and Resource Management
• Landscape Service Activities
• Facilities Management
• Cleaning and Hygiene Activities

Axiom Personnel specialises in the Cleaning & Hygiene sector placing candidates in cleaning positions every day, we primarily work directly for our clients who are recruiting their own cleaning teams.

According to the most recent ONS report 2021, there are over 450,000 working in the Cleaning and Hygiene sub-sector and the majority of the workforce is employed in general cleaning duties, of these 30% are involved in Industrial cleaning occupations.

This workforce tends to be made up of female workers, who will carry out the general cleaning duties with males tending to work in industrial cleaning sites. This sector tends to be underqualified and the new apprenticeships and training available from The BISC should help to improve this situation, but there are still less than 10% of the industry that receives any training.

The report also forecasts this sector will grow by a further 1400 jobs by 2027 but the most worrying statistic is that 63% of these workers are due to retire during the same period creating over 400,000 jobs (LMI for ALL 2020)

New initiatives will need to be agreed on for migrant workers to ensure we are able to meet this demand, migrant workers account for a large % of the current employees with 2 in 5 being employed in management and supervisory roles.

We are competent in recruiting to this sector, if you are a facilities manager or HR manager and you need support in recruiting industrial or office cleaners, we are happy to have an initial discussion with you about how we can help.