Domestic Assistant

A Domestic Assistant keeps the physical environment of a hospital, care home, school, hotel or similar site clean, hygienic and safe - cleaning wards, bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens and communal areas, handling laundry and waste, and often helping with meal service. In healthcare and social care settings the job is closely tied to infection control, so it is a clinical-support role rather than just cleaning. The work is done for patients, residents, pupils or guests, usually as part of a facilities, housekeeping or hotel-services team.

Starting salary: £23k–£26k
Live graduate jobs: 19 open now
Main way in: Direct application is overwhelmingly the normal route
They usually ask for: No degree required and no specific degree subject matters

Approximate graduate salary

Usually paid hourly at or a little above the National Living Wage, which works out at roughly £23,000–£26,000 a year full-time as an approximation. NHS posts sit at the bottom of the Agenda for Change pay bands and attract unsocial-hours enhancements plus a high-cost-area supplement in and around London; hotel and contract-cleaning rates vary and part-time or zero-hours contracts are common, so actual take-home varies a great deal.

What you'd actually do

Cleaning allocated areas to a set schedule - ward bays, bedrooms, toilets and bathrooms, corridors, day rooms, offices - using colour-coded cloths and mops so that equipment used in a bathroom is never used in a kitchen (a standard infection-control system in UK healthcare and care settings)
Carrying out 'terminal' or deep cleans when a patient or resident is discharged, moves room, or has had an infection, which means stripping the room, cleaning every surface and signing off that it is ready for use
Serving meals and drinks - plating up from a trolley, taking round tea rounds, washing up, cleaning the servery and recording food temperatures and fridge temperatures in a logbook
Changing beds, collecting and sorting laundry (often separating soiled or infected linen into designated bags), and restocking supplies such as hand towels, soap and gloves

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Handling waste streams correctly - general, recycling, clinical and sometimes sharps bins - and moving them to the right disposal point
Reporting things that need fixing or escalating: a spillage, a broken fitting, a resident who seems unwell or distressed, a stock shortage. In care settings you are often one of the people who sees residents most consistently, so noticing changes matters
Short conversations with patients, residents, families and nursing staff while you work - in care homes especially, this social contact is a genuine part of the job rather than an interruption to it

How graduates get in

Direct application is overwhelmingly the normal route. Jobs are advertised by NHS trusts (often via the NHS Jobs site), care home groups, hotels, schools, universities and contract cleaning/facilities-management companies, and you apply with a short application form rather than a graduate-scheme process
Agency and bank work is very common - signing up with a healthcare or hospitality agency, or joining an NHS trust's internal 'bank' of flexible staff, gives you shifts quickly and is a normal way to get a foot in before applying for a permanent post
Temporary and seasonal routes: hotel housekeeping over summer, university accommodation cleaning during the vacation turnaround, and holiday-park work all hire in volume and often take people with no experience
Internal moves from another role on site - kitchen porter, catering assistant, receptionist - are frequent, as facilities teams often recruit from people already in the building

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This is not a graduate scheme role and there is no graduate pipeline into it. Graduates who take it usually do so as flexible work alongside study or job-hunting, as a way into the NHS or social care, or as a first step towards care work, nursing or facilities management

What employers ask for

No degree required and no specific degree subject matters. Many employers ask for no formal qualifications at all; some prefer basic literacy and numeracy, sometimes expressed as GCSE English and maths or equivalent, but this is not universal
A DBS check (Disclosure and Barring Service - a criminal records check) is standard in healthcare, care homes and schools, because you are working around patients, residents or children. In the NHS this is usually an enhanced check
Willingness to work shifts, including early starts, evenings, weekends and bank holidays. Hospital and care home domestic work runs seven days a week
Physical capability for the role - being on your feet for a full shift, pushing trolleys, bending and reaching. Some employers run a short occupational health questionnaire

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Training is provided on the job and usually includes COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health - safe use of cleaning chemicals), infection prevention and control, manual handling, and food hygiene if you handle food. Some employers ask for Level 2 Food Hygiene in advance, but most will train you
Previous cleaning or hospitality experience helps but is often explicitly not required - a lot of adverts say training will be given

Skills that matter

Following cleaning procedures exactly

Infection control depends on the right chemical, the right dilution, the right cloth colour and the right order of cleaning, and cutting a corner can genuinely put a vulnerable patient at risk.

Working to time without supervision

You are usually given a list of areas and a shift to do them in, and nobody stands over you - the whole round has to be finished properly before handover.

Awareness of people around you

You are cleaning around patients who are ill, residents with dementia or guests in their rooms, so knowing when to pause, knock, explain what you are doing or come back later is a core part of doing it well.

Noticing and reporting changes

Domestic staff often spot a resident who has not eaten, a leak, or a hazard before anyone else does, and escalating it promptly is part of the role rather than someone else's job.

Record-keeping discipline

Cleaning schedules, fridge and food temperature logs and deep-clean sign-offs are audited and inspected, so entries need to be done accurately and at the time.

Physical stamina and pacing yourself

A shift is several hours of continuous standing, walking and lifting, and people who do not pace themselves burn out in the first fortnight.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Experienced Domestic Assistant - taking on a more demanding area (theatres, isolation rooms, a specialist ward), training new starters, or being trusted with deep-clean work.
Team leader, supervisor or senior housekeeper - allocating rounds, checking standards, ordering stock and managing rotas for a small team. This is the most common next step and how quickly it comes varies hugely with turnover and site size.
Domestic services manager, housekeeping manager or facilities supervisor - responsible for a department, budgets, audits and inspections. In the NHS this sits within hotel services or estates and facilities; in hospitality it is head housekeeper and upwards.
Sideways moves into care: many people use the role as a way into a Healthcare Assistant or Care Assistant post, and from there into funded routes such as a nursing apprenticeship or a nursing degree. In care homes this is a well-trodden path.
For graduates specifically, the role is more often a stepping stone than a career in itself - it is a realistic way into an NHS trust, a care group or a facilities-management contractor, from which you can apply internally for administrative, estates, procurement or clinical-support roles. Timelines here vary enormously and depend far more on internal vacancies than on any fixed ladder.

What people get wrong

“It is just cleaning, and the standards are the same as cleaning anywhere.”

In hospitals and care homes the work is governed by national cleanliness standards and infection-prevention protocols, audited, and subject to inspection by regulators such as the Care Quality Commission. The method is prescribed in detail and the consequences of getting it wrong are clinical, not cosmetic.

“You work alone and have no contact with patients or residents.”

Domestic staff are often among the most consistent daily faces for a long-stay patient or care home resident, and employers increasingly recruit for warmth and conversation as much as cleaning speed. In dementia care in particular that contact is treated as part of the care the home provides.

“There is nowhere to go from it.”

Within the NHS and large care providers there are structured supervisory and management grades above it, and internal transfer is common - people move into healthcare assistant roles, catering management, estates and facilities, and from there into funded clinical training.

“Being a graduate gives you an advantage in getting hired.”

It generally does not, and some employers are wary of applicants they expect to leave within months. Availability for the shift pattern, reliability and a clean DBS check carry far more weight than a degree.

Where this varies

The job differs substantially by sector. In the NHS it is a clinical-support role with formal cleanliness standards, infection-control training, Agenda for Change pay and enhancements for nights and weekends, and it may be employed directly by the trust or by an outsourced facilities contractor on different terms. In care homes it is smaller-scale, more sociable and often combined with laundry and meal service, with more direct resident contact. In hotels and student accommodation it is housekeeping - room turnarounds against a timed target, heavily seasonal, frequently agency-staffed. In schools it is usually part-time, outside teaching hours, with an enhanced DBS check. Hours also vary widely: some posts are 6am-2pm weekdays, others are split shifts, twilight shifts or weekend-only.

See all 19 live Domestic Assistant jobsFrom employers' own careers sites, updated daily Tailor your CV for this roleFree with an account, 3 a month

General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.