What’s the average roof cleaner salary?

Thinking of a trade career as a roof cleaner? Or maybe starting and growing your own roof cleaner business? Then you’ll want the lowdown on how much roof cleaners can earn.

That’s where our handy guide comes in. You’ll see how salary levels rise with experience and qualifications. And also the financial benefits of being your own boss.

What does roof cleaner work involve?

Cleaning roofs needs the right combination of experience, skill and equipment.

Plus physical endurance and an ability to work at heights. That’s why roof cleaning is a niche trade that can pay well.

You could be:

• Soft washing
• Pressure washing
• Chemical cleaning

The more you specialise, the more work you’re likely to find. Specialising can also allow you to charge more for your services.

What are the best roof cleaner qualifications?

There aren’t any official qualifications you need to be a roof cleaner. But there are plenty of training it would be sensible to have. Not least in terms of safety for you and your customers.

They include:

• Safety rules for working at height
• Working with hazardous materials
• Knowing how to work safely on rooftops
• Being competent in using ladders
• Understanding water jetting

Training is always important. That goes for employees as well as if you’re thinking about starting a roof cleaner business or growing your business.

How much can a roof cleaner earn?

You can see what the work involves. You’ve got information on useful skills and qualifications that can help you earn more.

Let’s now look at the average roof cleaner salary. Our comparison table shows how your earning potential increases with experience. It goes highest if you own your trade business.

Starting out as a roof cleaner apprentice

An apprenticeship is a great way to work and learn at the same time. Many trade businesses like the idea of taking on apprentices.

A good starting point for you might be asking around local businesses for opportunities. A major advantage of apprenticeships is your training costs are paid for you.

The average apprentice roof cleaner wage is £13,258 per year.

What is a qualified roof cleaner salary?

As you gain experience and qualifications, you can expect to earn more. A newly qualified roof cleaner’s average wage is £21,441 per year.

At this stage in your career, you’re likely to be working for someone else. The average wage for a qualified employee with experience is about £29,536 per year.

Average roof cleaner wage for a business owner

Owning your own business is the goal of many tradespeople when they first set out in their career. As you can see, it can pay more. But remember that as a business owner, you’ll be taking on certain business risks as well.

• Sole trader

If you’re a sole trader, the average roof cleaner salary is likely to be £36,876 per year.

However, you’ll probably have to make deductions from your earnings to pay business expenses. As sole trader roof cleaner, these could be £4,610 per year.

• Limited company
  

An alternative to being a sole trader is to set up a limited company. As a limited company owner, you can probably charge more for your roof cleaner services.

This is reflected in the jump in the average annual salary for a roof cleaner who owns a limited company to £44,251 per year.

As with sole traders, a limited company owner has to pay business costs. For business-owning roof cleaners, average business costs are in the order of £7,744 per year.

Average roof cleaner salary for an employee

You’ll find some employers prefer to pay hourly or daily rates. It usually depends on the nature of the work and the types of jobs involved. You can see from our analysis below that the average rates rises with experience.

What a roof cleaner can earn per hour

• Apprentice: £7.55 per hour
• Newly qualified: £12.21 per hour
• Employed: £14.20 per hour

What a roof cleaner can earn per day

These daily rates are based on an eight-hour day:

• Apprentice: £60.40 per day
• Newly qualified: £97.68 per day
• Employed: £113.60 per day

What’s the average salary for a business owner?

Working for yourself can make your earnings higher compared with being an employee.  But don’t forget that your business will also have various expenses to pay.

The rewards for owning a business are higher as you also take on some risks. A great way to keep in control of both income and expenditure is to have a workable business plan.

Don’t forget about business expenses

As we’ve mentioned, your trade business will incur expenses. To keep your earnings as high as possible, you should maintain a close eye on your business outgoings.

A lot of business expenses are tax deductible. In other words, you can use certain business costs to reduce your taxable profit. That’s one of the advantages of being self-employed.

How much can a roof cleaner earn as a sole trader?

Being a self-employed sole trader means you can earn more as a roof cleaner. A lot of it comes down to how hard you want to work.

On average, a roof cleaner salary for a sole trader is £36,876 per year.

The average annual business costs of a roof cleaner sole trader is likely to be around £4,610 per year.

How much can you earn by owning a roof cleaner company?

Making your trade business a limited company is another option. You can expect the average roof cleaner wage to be higher compared with being a sole trader.

• A roof cleaner who has their own company can earn £44,251 per year
• For a limited company, the average business costs are £7,744 per year

Perhaps now is the time for you to examine the differences between a sole trader and a limited company.

Want to be your own boss?

It’s fairly clear from our guide that you could earn more by setting up in business. But becoming a trade business owner can be a big challenge.

If you want to be your own boss, there’s lots of advice available. We’ve plenty of tips to help you become your own boss.

You can also find out how other tradespeople have set up in business.

Find more roof cleaning leads with Checkatrade

As a roof cleaner business owner, there’s probably one place you want to be most. And that’s on a roof or up a ladder. But finding sales leads to keep your business profitable won’t happen by magic.

That’s where you can rely on us. Checkatrade members receive our help with new enquiries.

There are lots of other benefits of Checkatrade membership too. They include:

• Exclusive offers and discounts with suppliers like Tradepoint and Wickes
• Up to 75% off Quickbooks business software
• Up to 20% off Public Liability Insurance
• Reduced cost of workwear and branding
• Guaranteed work when booked through us (T&Cs apply)
• Dedicated trades apps for job management and quoting/invoicing

 Key takeaways

• You don’t need official qualifications to be a roof cleaner, but there’s plenty of safety and skills training essential to this trade
• More experience and qualifications can help you to earn more as a roof cleaner
• Entry-level wages as an apprentice start at around £13,258 per year
• An average salary for a newly qualified roof cleaner is £21,441 per year
• With more experience as a company employee, you could earn £29,536 per year
• As a business owner (such as sole trader) you could earn £36,876 per year