Cleaner CV example

What the person hiring you wants to know

Cleaning jobs are usually filled by a site supervisor, an area manager at a contract cleaning firm, or a school business manager. They are not reading for clever wording. They are asking four plain questions. Will you turn up for every shift? Can you work on your own with no one checking? Will you use the chemicals and machines safely? And can they give you a key to the building? Your CV should answer all four within the first few lines, and it should fit on one page.

The National Careers Service describes cleaning work in offices, schools, hospitals and homes, often on evening, weekend or split shifts. That spread matters, because each setting cares about slightly different things. Tell the reader which ones you know.

Name the sites, not just the tasks

Every cleaner dusts, mops and empties bins, so a list of those tasks tells an employer nothing new. What makes you stand out is where you did it and how big it was. Under each job, give the type of site, its size, and the shift. Then add what was specific to that place:

• Offices: floors or square footage, washrooms and kitchens, meeting rooms turned round, working around staff on early shifts.
• Schools: pupil numbers, science labs, sports halls, holiday deep cleans, and working alongside the caretaker.
• Hospitals and care homes: infection control, colour-coded equipment, clinical waste, and following ward cleaning schedules.
• Commercial kitchens: degreasing, extraction canopies, food-safe chemicals and early starts before service.
• Domestic: how many households, how long clients stayed with you, and whether you held their keys.

Show you are reliable, without saying "reliable"

Everyone writes "reliable and hard-working". A manager believes it when they see the proof. Good evidence is staying with one employer or client for years, being asked to cover other sites or shifts, being made keyholder, or being moved from nights to a team leader post. If you had a good attendance record, you can say so plainly, for example "no unplanned absence in the last two years", as long as it is true.

Be clear about the hours you can work. Cleaning rotas often start early or finish late, and some are split shifts with a gap in the middle of the day. A line such as "Available early mornings and evenings, Monday to Saturday" near the top saves the manager a phone call.

Chemicals, machines and training

COSHH stands for the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health, the regulations that require employers to manage the risks from cleaning chemicals and other hazardous substances. If you have had COSHH training, list it with the date. It tells an employer you know how to dilute products, read a safety data sheet and store chemicals safely. Mention colour-coded cloths and mops too, which matter a lot in hospitals, kitchens and washrooms.

Name the machines you can use: scrubber dryers, rotary buffers, carpet extractors, pressure washers, or high-level cleaning poles. Cleaners who can run a machine on a large floor are useful to a contractor, and it is worth a line of its own. Other training that helps includes first aid, manual handling and working at height.

You do not need qualifications to become a cleaner, but they help when you go for a better-paid post or a supervisor role. The National Careers Service lists college courses in cleaning principles and a Level 2 Cleaning Hygiene Operative apprenticeship, and names the British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICSc) as the professional body for the industry.

Keys, alarms and background checks

Many cleaners work in empty buildings, so trust is part of the job. If you open up, lock up, set alarms, sign keys out or clean secure areas such as server rooms or managers' offices, say so. For domestic work, "trusted with keys by six households" says more than any adjective.

Jobs that involve working with children or vulnerable adults, such as in schools, hospitals and care homes, usually need a DBS check, and the employer requests it. A check is usually done for a particular role, so rather than writing "current DBS", say when and for which type of site you were checked, as Maria does in the example. That tells a new employer you have been through the process before.

Stepping up to supervisor

Maria, in the example above, is going for her first supervisor post. The manager hiring her wants to know she can run a site without a senior person there. So her CV leads with the parts of her job that are already supervisory: leading a team of five, checking the work against the client's specification, covering gaps in the rota, ordering stock, keeping the COSHH records, and training new starters. None of these needed a new job title.

If you are in the same position, look at your current week for similar tasks. Do you check other people's work? Do you deal with the client's office manager when something is missed? Do you show new people how things are done? Write each one as something you do, with the size of the team or site. A supervisor role also involves some paperwork, so mention audits, sign-in sheets or incident reports you fill in.

References matter more than usual

Because you will be on site with valuables and often alone, cleaning employers tend to take references seriously and may check the dates of every job. Make sure your dates are accurate, keep contact with previous supervisors, and if you worked for private clients, ask one or two long-standing ones whether they would vouch for you. You do not need to list referees on the CV itself unless the advert asks.

Cleaner pay and hours

The National Careers Service gives average pay for cleaners of £19,000 for a starter and £25,000 when experienced, for between 34 and 42 hours a week that can include evenings, weekends and split shifts. Many cleaning jobs are part-time, so check whether an advert gives a yearly figure or an hourly rate. Supervisory and specialist cleaning roles are how most people move up.