The Datum Report

Occupation 9226 · Elementary occupations

Vehicle valeters and cleaners

Half of full-time vehicle valeters and cleaners in the UK earn more than £26,598 a year, and half earn less.

Vehicle valeters and cleaners clean, wash and polish the interiors and exteriors of ships, aircraft, trains and road vehicles.

How people enter it

No academic qualifications are required. On-the-job training may be provided. Vocational qualifications in relevant areas are available at levels 1 and 2.

What the work involves

• vacuums, brushes and washes vehicle upholstery and interior surfaces
• empties waste bins and removes rubbish
• reports any damage or vandalism to the fabric of the vehicle interior
• washes, cleans and polishes as appropriate the exterior surfaces of vehicles

Also called

Car washer · Carriage cleaner · Motor car polisher (garage) · Vehicle valeter

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for vehicle valeters and cleaners, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 10 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Cleaners and domestics · Elementary cleaning occupations n.e.c. · Launderers, dry cleaners and pressers · Refuse and salvage occupations · Street cleaners · Window cleaners