A bright future?

Established in 1982, the British Cleaning Council (BCC) is the authoritative voice of UK cleaning, a sector worth over £24bn a year to the country’s economy and one which employs over 700,000 people.

The Council’s membership is made up of over 20 trade and membership associations which are all linked to the cleaning and hygiene professions.

Key priorities for the BCC and its membership include raising professional standards, employee health and wellbeing, career development and training, improved quality control and better procurement practices. We are also committed to promoting higher levels of cleaning and hygiene across all environments – commercial, domestic and public.

The BCC also co-produces the world-renowned Cleaning Show. This flagship industry expo, which alternates annually between the ExCel Centre in London and Event City in Manchester, is a showcase for the latest developments and innovations in UK cleaning as well as providing a forum to discuss and debate major issues which impact on the whole sector.

One such issue is skills and recruitment, and the BCC is increasingly concerned about a potential skills gap which could quickly escalate into a skills crisis. 

The BCC’s own research demonstrates that as an industry we’re going to require over 380,000 cleaning operatives over the next decade simply to replace those retiring. This is in addition to 84,000 vacancies we expect to see created by growth in the sector. 

These figures were also calculated before the potential impact of Brexit was realised, and however we end up after leaving the EU professional cleaning could see itself wrestling with a massive challenge of recruitment, retainment and upskilling just to keep pace with demand. 

We’re also disappointed that the proposed Cleaning & Hygiene Operative Level 2 apprenticeship hasn’t been progressed by government, and that possibly the much touted ‘T-level’ vocational pathway, which might one day include a cleaning component, seems increasingly distant as the whole T-Level programme has been delayed until at least 2020.

This means that while there is a huge challenge to close the skills gap in cleaning, there is no obvious training-based route for young people to follow which is directly aligned to the sector.

The potential consequences of this, especially in the light of Brexit, cannot be under estimated. The latest British Cleaning Council research suggests 12% of all cleaning firms struggle due to a lack of skilled staff, and over 5% of actual cleaning staff feel they are not fully proficient in their role. 

In effect that means there are around 35,000 operatives in the UK who believe they lack the right skills, which is clearly worrying. Furthermore 68% of cleaning firms have told us that the skills issue is having a direct impact on their business while 43% of firms tell us while they would like to provide more training, they were restricted by either lack of budgets, time-constraints, or both.   

So, while the BCC welcomes the fact that the cleaning industry is trying to compensate for a lack of formal industry qualifications via range of in-house programmes, there is obviously a limit to how much the private sector can deliver on its own.  

And, as I have said before, while technology and automation may help to plug some of the gaps we anticipate in terms of low-skilled, repetitive task-based activities, robots and IoT-enabled machines won’t solve the bigger picture problem we face.

This is why the BCC continues to push the importance of vocational training at every opportunity with partners and policy makers, and while we are also exploring sector-wide initiatives through the Council itself. 

This includes a BCC programme called Project 35 which is looking at how we attract more young people into the industry. We’ve set up a cross-sector working group, which has been researching young people's perceptions of the industry and looking at what we need to do to engage with them more effectively, enthuse them about working in the cleaning industry, and getting them to take that first step on a cleaning career-ladder. 

Furthermore, in my role as Group CEO of The British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICSc), I have been very closely involved in developing BICSc’s #Creating a Career in Cleaning campaign. This initiative is based on a belief that if you have passion for cleaning that there are credible, high-quality and accredited training options out there which can help you attain your career aspirations. 

The campaign also looks to excite people already within the industry; empowering them to realise their potential, helping them to achieve job satisfaction, and reach their work-related goals. 

I believe that this blend of expert knowledge from highly regarded industry professionals, combined with enthusiastic, emotional and motivated delivery, will go some way to help tackle both the skills deficit and employment shortages which the BCC’s recent research has forecast.

But any government intervention which directly addresses vocational training within cleaning and hygiene would still be very welcome. 

Other developments linked specifically to recruitment we foresee include the increasing demand for daytime cleaning staff who will be required to work around people in offices, shops, factories and public buildings. This will require a different skill set, and recruiters will be looking for individuals who are comfortable interacting with customers as well as being able to clean a workplace efficiently.  

I believe such human ‘soft skills’ will also be in demand to fulfil a new type of role in the near future which is echoed by our recent research. We anticipate that over 22,000 ‘personal service’ cleaning roles will be created by 2024, but I envisage these will increasingly be more than just domestic cleaners. 

With our aging population, and the need to keep people out of hospital and care homes for as long as possible, many of these domestic roles will I believe morph into a new hybrid profession where healthcare, shopping and companionship services will be combined with cleaning and other domestic tasks.

We’ll also see more agile, mobile and multidisciplinary firms spring up, blurring the lines between cleaning and other facilities management services. Many of these will operate a business model driven by the type of digitally-based approach to logistics which currently underpins companies like Uber and Deliveroo. 

So, while I do see a bright and positive future for cleaning ahead, clearly a significant shift in how we attract and develop staff will be required to fulfil the sector’s growth potential.

For more information on the work of the BCC visit www.britishcleaningcouncil.org or email [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter @britishcleaning

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