If you’ve already got your cleaning business off the ground but are struggling with growth, this blog might help.
While offering general cleaning services will make you known to a lot of potential clients in your local area, your business could be losing out to competition that’s more focused on a certain type of cleaning.
Individuals and organisations often value specialist cleaning services as they’re more likely to produce better results for the specific work that needs to be done.
In this piece, you’ll find practical advice and useful information surrounding niches for cleaning businesses, including how to choose the right niche and what kind of profits you can expect.
What does it mean to have a cleaning niche?
Many small and medium-sized businesses face the problem of over-diversification in the services they provide. The phrase, “jack of all trades, master of none” comes to mind. When it comes to cleaning businesses, trying to offer services for any cleaning jobs can lead to problems such as client churn, low-paying customers, and increased stress. In contrast, providing niche cleaning services helps attract the right clients for your business.
There isn’t such a thing as ‘too niche’ when it comes to providing cleaning services. While your business might have diminished access to the overall market share, you have the opportunity to position yourself as a niche expert providing a premium service. Having a few high-margin long-term customers is far better for business than many low-paying ones. Niching also streamlines the services you provide, employee training, and many more aspects of running a cleaning business.
When is it the right time to choose a niche?
Now! Many experts take the stance that any business niche is better than none. This is because having a clear niche gives your business a clear direction. Cleaning business niches can influence:
- Your services
- Your customers
- How you promote your services
- Your target area
- How you measure progress
In this way, it’s better to think about your niche as a way to reposition your business and its services within the cleaning market. Niching will often be accompanied by a shift in branding and marketing strategies to help attract people in your niche.
Most profitable cleaning niches 2025
According to the most recent research report from the British Cleaning Council, the size of the UK cleaning industry was estimated at £59.8bn in 2021. This rise in market turnover, as well as the increase in the number of cleaning businesses in the UK to 75,565 in 2023, indicates that there’s plenty of scope for new cleaning businesses to carve out their own market share.
Oftentimes, having lots of options can make the decision of niching down even more difficult. To help get the ball rolling, we’ve put together some ideas for profitable cleaning businesses in niches that are seeing success in 2025.
Cleaning for healthcare institutions
Ever since the Covid pandemic, the focus has intensified on hygiene and cleaning practices in medical settings to ensure safe conditions. As such, demand soared for specialist cleaners with the knowledge and training necessary for healthcare cleaning. Focusing on this niche could give cleaning business owners access to clients in both the public and private healthcare space.
Quality cleaning is essential for medical and healthcare institutions to comply with regulatory standards. There can be significant fines and reputational consequences for unsanitary conditions, so healthcare bodies are frequently willing to pay more for dedicated cleaning services than other industries.
Floor and carpet cleaning
One thing that all residential and commercial properties have in common is floors. Whether it’s carpets, tiled flooring, concrete, rugs, or wooden flooring; this type of cleaning is often highly valued by customers, as they want to find a business they can trust to complete the work without causing damage. This often leads to customers seeking out premium services, which enables the cleaning businesses in this niche to reap greater profits.
You could niche down further and focus on certain types of carpets and flooring. For instance, you could specialise in cleaning the padded floors in gymnasiums or gymnastic studios.
Window cleaning
Window cleaning is a sought-after service for homeowners and business owners alike, especially those with properties covering multiple stories in height. Many offices and commercial facilities will need window cleaning at regular intervals, allowing cleaning business owners to secure repeat work for high-paying customers. This might also be possible if you are based in an affluent area where large private homes need regular maintenance.
This is one possible niche cleaning business opportunity focusing on building exteriors. The tools and experience needed for window cleaning can also be applied to gutter cleaning and brickwork. Either of these options could prove profitable by attracting high-paying customers.
Oven cleaning
An increasingly popular cleaning niche is oven cleaning, as it’s one of the areas within residential properties that attract the most dirt. People simply don’t have the time or energy to clean their oven regularly and to a high standard. As a result, they seek out professional oven cleaners. You don’t just have to target homeowners and renters with this niche either; it might be beneficial to go after landlords by offering post-tenancy cleaning services.
If you want to narrow your services, or provide additional cleaning services aimed at kitchens, you could focus on other appliances such as microwave ovens. Equally, you could just focus on a specific area associated with the oven such as the extractor hood cleaning or a hob cleaning service.
Could oven cleaning be the right niche for you?
The oven cleaning niche is sometimes overlooked, partly because it’s lumped in with general kitchen cleaning. However, oven cleaning is regularly demanded as a standalone service due to the amount of dirt and grime which can build up on the appliance. At Ovenu, we’ve seen firsthand how much success new business owners can build when focusing on a tried and tested oven cleaning business model.
It’s incredibly easy to set up an oven cleaning business when you have the UK’s top rated oven cleaning franchise supporting you every step of the way. We have routinely helped our franchisees build oven cleaning businesses that generate over £60,000 in profit year after year. This is due in large part to our franchise package, which provides the perfect turning point for anyone looking to niche down their business.
While you will still need to put in the hard work and long hours, running a successful oven cleaning business is highly rewarding. You’ll be out in the community helping people make their kitchen a more inviting space and enabling them to have a healthier cooking experience.
How to choose a niche for your cleaning business
With the massive array of possible niches, it can be difficult to pick one to focus on. Sometimes, there may even be a niche to explore within a certain type of cleaning. For example, office cleaners could choose to specialise in cleaning medical offices, tech startups, or other kinds of businesses. Start by considering the following:
Sector
Are you going to be providing a residential cleaning service or a commercial cleaning service? In many cases, this will be dictated by the nature of your surrounding area so that’s a good place to start your research. Of course, not all niches can be grouped into these broad areas. For instance, you might choose to focus on publicly owned buildings like schools or a highly technical cleaning service targeting food manufacturers. That will come later.
Find a problem that needs solving
Every business should either fulfil a need or provide a service that makes people’s lives easier. When choosing your niche, try to think about what cleaning issues regularly face those in your chosen sector. These pain points can be anything, so it’s important to empathise with customers and conduct thorough research.
To discover the main problems being faced by consumers in a niche market, first look at successful competitors. What are they offering? What do they post about on social media? What topics are people engaging with? Another way to gain market information as a cleaning business is to survey existing customers to ask what they feel is missing from your services or improvements that could be made. Similarly, customer reviews can provide invaluable insights into their priorities.
Can you draw on past experience?
Ideally, you’ll choose a cleaning niche which you are passionate about or at least find interesting. However, it will also be helpful if you have any knowledge or experience that relates to the niche market. This could be from previous jobs, events, or hobbies. Whatever the connection, drawing on life experience will help establish yourself as an expert within the niche. This also helps add personality and create a more trusting image.
Affordability
Assess the market conditions in your niche to get a sense of how much you can charge for cleaning services. Generally, it’s always best to focus on a niche that appeals to high-earners to achieve a higher profit margin. This is also beneficial because a niche market by definition almost always contains a smaller number of potential clients.
Matching your price according to your ideal customers’ purchasing power is not only essential for profitability, it helps inform messaging as well. Knowing what your ideal customer is willing to spend could help you build a more detailed audience profile and adjust marketing/advertising accordingly.
Is there room to grow?
Finally, it’s vital to consider the long-term potential for business growth within the market. If the current market is growing, this is generally a good sign to enter at this time. Running a cleaning business can be challenging on its own, but if the wider market conditions don’t support early-years growth then this will be magnified.
When it comes to niche cleaning services, market conditions might be linked to other specific industries or sectors. For example, if your business focus is shifting towards end of tenancy cleaning for student properties, you should look for an upward trend in applications to local universities.
Get started today with franchise support
Changing the course of your cleaning business activities to focus on a niche can be intimidating. However, it could also be the right move for the long-term health of your business.
Making the switch is made all the more easier when you have the support of an established market franchise. Their business model, marketing, reputation, and connections within your niche will work for you as you adapt your business to focus on a specific cleaning niche.
If you’re stuck thinking about whether or not to start a niche cleaning service business, get in touch to chat to a member of the Ovenu team today.
