Ray cleaning up in domestic help sector

A BUDDING entrepreneur has tripled turnover of her professional housekeeping service business to £3.5m in two years.

Rachel Ray reached the milestone with Bright & Beautiful – a company she set up from her home is Sale in 2007 – this month.

She now has more than 50 franchises operating in the ethical homecare business across the UK, employing in excess of 300 people – 120 in the North West.

All the franchises which deliver professional cleaning, tidying, laundry and ironing services, are owned and run by women who wanted a career which would allow them to have a better work-life balance.

Ray, 45, also plans to expand the business significantly in 2015, recruiting 20 new franchisees and creating more than 150 new jobs as well as launching additional specialist housekeeping services.

Ray, who now runs the business from the head office in Altrincham, said: “: “As well as building a £3.5m turnover business and creating 300 jobs, we are also working hard to raise the bar and standards for a £4.7bn industry which is largely unregulated in this country, with many agencies and employers offering workers no holiday or maternity pay and little quality control.

“The evolving labour market has really shaped the speed at which we have been able to grow both our client and franchisee base.

“People are working longer hours so are employing more domestic help and an increasing number of women aren’t prepared to sacrifice their family for work, which leads them to look at becoming self employed.

“Our business model works so well because the franchisees earn a good salary running the business, delivering an impeccable service for the clients and managing their own team of professional housekeepers, yet they can still be in control of their own diary and create a great work-life balance.”