A wage, immediately
You are employed from day one — not a volunteer, not on work experience. Paid at least the National Minimum Wage for your age, reviewed every April.
Applications open · Cardiff
Learn a craft. Earn from day one.
A paid, structured route into professional housekeeping — with a recognised qualification at the end of it. No experience needed. No tuition fees. Just a trade you can take anywhere.
0Day until you’re paid
0Weeks of paid induction
0Months to full qualification
£0Cost of your qualification
Why we built this
Nobody teaches this properly.
So we decided to.
Running a beautiful home to a five-star standard is a genuine skill. Knowing which cloth touches marble and which never should. Reading a care label and saving a £400 jumper. Dressing a table so a family walks in and exhales.
None of that is guesswork, and none of it is taught in school. For years we hired people and hoped they’d pick it up. Now we teach it — properly, from the first morning, and we pay you while you learn.
What you get
Four things, from your first week
A real qualification
Industry-recognised cleaning certification plus a Welsh Government funded apprenticeship. It costs you nothing and it belongs to you for life.
Somebody in your corner
A named mentor who has done the job for years, a supervisor you can ring, and a monthly one-to-one that is about you, not just the work.
Somewhere to go next
A published ladder from Silver to Head Housekeeper, with the pay and responsibility at each stage written down in advance. No guessing.
The Highgrove Standard
Silver, Gold, Platinum —
the same names our clients know
Our clients choose a Silver, Gold or Platinum service. Our housekeepers earn the same three standards. When you reach Gold, the families you look after know exactly what that means.
Foundation
Weeks 1–6 · PaidSix weeks of induction before you set foot in a client’s home alone. Health and safety, chemical competence, the equipment, the Highgrove method — then shadowing a senior housekeeper on a real round.
- COSHH & chemical safety
- Manual handling
- Equipment care
- Shadowing
- Confidentiality
Silver
Months 2–6You take your first industry certification and start working a regular round with your mentor beside you. By the end of Silver you have homes of your own and clients who know your name.
- Licence to Practice
- Core skills units
- Your first assigned homes
- Written handovers
Gold
Months 6–18The craft proper. Fabric and fibre care, fine surfaces, wardrobe management, laundry finishing. You complete your apprenticeship qualification and hold a client list of your own.
- Apprenticeship qualification
- Fabric & fibre
- Stone & timber
- Laundry finishing
- Client care
Platinum
18 months onwardMorning management, event preparation, and the homes that ask for our very best. You begin mentoring newer trainees and deputising when a supervisor is away.
- Morning management
- Event preparation
- Mentoring
- Level 3 route
Head Housekeeper
By invitationRunning a team, holding the standard, and training the people coming up behind you. Some go on to manage operations here. Some take the qualification to a hotel, an estate, or their own business. All of those are wins.
- Team leadership
- Quality auditing
- Training others
- Operations route
Straight with you
It is real work
We would rather tell you now than have you find out in week two.
- Early starts. Most rounds begin between 8am and 9am. You will need to be reliable about mornings.
- You will be on your feet. It is physical. Most people find they sleep well.
- Standards are non-negotiable. A room is finished when it is finished, not when the clock says so.
- You are in someone’s home. Discretion is part of the job. What you see stays with you.
- And it is genuinely satisfying. You leave a place better than you found it, every single day, and people are grateful.
The standard you’ll be trained to
What our clients say about the work
“What a difference it has made to our family life.”
The Bryants · Cyncoed
“Their flair for organisation has left my home looking so much more fresh.”
Sarah Jane Thomas · Victoria Park
“I like Suzanna, she did everything I wanted.”
Marian Harry · Dinas Powys
Client feedback from Highgrove Housekeeping. This is the standard the Academy trains you to reach — and once you reach it, this is what people say about your work.
Who it’s for
You do not need experience.
You do not need qualifications.
The Academy is open to anyone aged 16 or over who can get to homes across Cardiff and the Vale. We have taken on people straight out of school, people changing direction, and people returning to work after years away.
What we actually look for is simpler: turn up when you say you will, care about doing something properly, and be someone a family is glad to find in their house.
Next intake
Come and see the place first
You are welcome to visit, meet the team and ask anything before you commit to a form. If you are under 18, bring a parent or guardian with you — we would rather they came.