The household cleaning products market is worth £1.06 billion and caters for a wide range of cleaning tasks in rooms throughout the home, including those that are done very regularly and those done by the majority of people infrequently. In both hard surface cleaners and cleaning equipment a recent focus has been seen on products that are quicker and easier to use for those with ever busier lives.

Pressure on time and a reluctance to spend too much spare time cleaning are barriers to more frequent cleaning of the home and usage of cleaning products, but big variations also exist in the amount of time different people spend cleaning the home during a typical week. On the whole, responsibility for cleaning is not shared evenly between men and women, and older and younger members of households, which has implications for product purchasing.

This report looks at how much time people spend cleaning the home, how cleaning responsibilities are shared between households, general approaches to cleaning, how particular cleaning tasks are tackled, signals for having cleaned enough in different rooms and attitudes towards home care. Insights gained are then used to produce ideas for new products and campaigns, including those aimed at increasing brand engagement and driving incremental sales of cleaning products.

The following cleaning tasks are covered:

• The bathroom (ie toilet, bath, sinks, tiles)

• The kitchen (ie countertops, stovetop, tiles)

• The oven

• Vacuuming floors

• Mopping floors

• Sweeping floors

• Dusting items/furniture

• Polishing furniture (eg tables)

• Vacuuming fabrics/upholstery

• Spot cleaning fabrics/upholstery

• Shampooing fabrics/upholstery

• Windows.

Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland.