Why ORIMAE Exists: The Changing Way Britain Runs Its Homes

The way we live at home has changed. The way we get help at home hasn’t always kept up.

When we began developing ORIMAE, we didn’t start with the question, “How do we build another cleaning company?”

We started somewhere else.

We looked at British households.

How many there are. How people live. How many households are working. How our population is ageing. How much we already spend bringing help into our homes. And, perhaps most importantly, how much time and organisation modern life now asks of us.

The more we looked, the clearer something became.

There is already an enormous market for help at home.

The opportunity isn’t about convincing millions of people that they suddenly need domestic support.

They already use it.

The opportunity is to make that support easier to find, easier to trust and much easier to manage.

That is the thinking behind ORIMAE.

Britain has 29 million households

In 2025, there were approximately 29 million households in the UK.

Those households are incredibly varied.

There are busy families juggling careers and children. Couples whose weekends have become an extension of the working week. People living alone managing everything themselves. Older homeowners who want to remain independent. Adult children helping parents from another town or city. People travelling regularly for work. Second-home owners. Landlords. People simply deciding that their limited free time is worth protecting.

There isn’t one typical customer for household support.

And that matters.

The traditional idea that having help at home is only for the very wealthy is increasingly out of date.

For many households, paying for help is simply another way of buying back time.

Britain’s working households are busy households

Among households containing working-age adults, a large proportion now have every adult in employment.

That changes the way home life works.

There are only so many hours in a week.

Work still has to happen. Children need collecting. Food needs buying. Washing accumulates. Bathrooms need cleaning. Beds need changing. Deliveries arrive. Tradespeople need access. The fridge somehow needs emptying. Someone has to remember that the plants need watering while the family is away.

None of these jobs is extraordinary.

Together, though, they make up the enormous invisible project of running a home.

And this is one of the things that interested us most.

Most of the market is still organised around individual tasks.

Need a cleaner? Find a cleaner.

Need ironing? Find somebody else.

Going away and want the house checked? Ask a neighbour.

Need someone to let the plumber in? Rearrange your day.

Coming home late and want the house ready? Sort that separately too.

Yet to the homeowner these aren’t really separate problems.

They are all part of the same thing:

keeping life at home running properly.

We already spend billions on help at home

This is not a hypothetical market.

UK households already spend billions each year on domestic and household services.

Cleaning is a major established industry, but the wider market around the home stretches much further.

Ironing.

Household support.

Organisation.

Property checks.

Access for tradespeople.

Second-home support.

One-off practical help.

The demand is already there.

What is striking is how fragmented the market remains.

There are thousands of excellent independent cleaners and local professionals doing good work.

But for customers, the difficulty is often not just finding somebody who is available.

It is finding somebody they can trust.

Trust is not an extra. It is the service.

This is one of the most important things we discovered while developing ORIMAE.

When somebody comes into your home, you are not simply buying an hour of labour.

You are giving somebody access to your private space.

Sometimes that means keys.

Sometimes alarm codes.

Sometimes access when nobody is home.

Sometimes pets, deliveries, tradespeople or an empty property are involved.

That changes everything.

Customers need to know who is coming through the door.

They need to know that person has been properly selected.

They need references to have been checked.

They need appropriate insurance to be in place.

They need accountability if something goes wrong.

That is why ORIMAE is being built around carefully selected, fully vetted, referenced and insured local professionals.

Not simply whoever happens to be available.

Because for us, trust is not a marketing line.

It is fundamental to the service.

An ageing population changes the market too

Britain is ageing.

And that creates another important shift in the household-support market.

Not everyone who needs help at home needs care.

There is a huge space between being completely self-sufficient and needing formal personal care.

That space includes things like:

Cleaning.

Changing beds.

Ironing.

Helping organise a room.

Being there when a tradesperson calls.

Checking the property while someone is away.

Taking care of the small jobs that become inconvenient long before they become a crisis.

Practical household support can help people remain independent for longer.

And it can also give reassurance to families who do not live nearby.

We think that part of the market will only become more important.

More homes are being managed from somewhere else

The idea of “home” is changing too.

People travel more.

Some divide their time between more than one property.

Some have second homes.

Some spend long periods away for work.

Some manage properties for older parents.

Some simply want reassurance while they are on holiday.

That creates demand for trusted local people who can do simple things well.

Check the house.

Open windows.

Water plants.

Provide access.

Make sure something has not gone wrong.

Prepare the property before some

one arrives.

Sometimes the service is practical.

Sometimes what people are really buying is peace of mind.

Cleaning is often where the relationship begins

We think cleaning will remain at the heart of the household-support market.

It is regular.

It is visible.

And it immediately gives somebody something valuable back:

TIME

But we don’t think the relationship necessarily has to end there.

Once somebody has earned the confidence to be in your home, the question often becomes:

Could you help with this too?

Could someone do the ironing?

Could somebody check the house while we’re away?

Could someone let the engineer in?

Could someone water everything?

Could someone help us get organised after a move?

Could somebody prepare the house before Mum comes home?

These aren’t luxury concierge requests.

They are ordinary life.

And that is exactly the point.

A huge market does not require a huge market share

This was one of the most reassuring things we found when modelling ORIMAE.

Imagine a local area with 100,000 households.

If ORIMAE served:

0.1% — 100 households

0.25% — 250 households

0.5% — 500 households

1% — 1,000 households

That changes the way you think about growth.

We don’t need everyone.

We don’t need to dominate a town.

We don’t need every household in Britain to know our name.

We need to become the trusted choice for a relatively small number of households in every area we serve.

And then serve them exceptionally well.

So, why ORIMAE?

Because after looking at the market, we don’t believe Britain needs another company simply promising to clean houses.

We think there is a broader need.

For trusted local professionals who have been properly vetted, referenced and insured.

For customers to know who they are allowing into their homes.

For consistency and accountability.

For somewhere to turn when a household needs more than one kind of support.

For someone to coordinate the small practical things that quietly consume so much of our time.

And for a service that can grow with the household rather than forcing people to start again every time a different job appears.

That is what we are building.

ORIMAE can begin with a regular clean.

It might be a one-off deep clean.

It could be ironing, household organisation, a property check or practical home support.

Sometimes people need regular help.

Sometimes they simply need somebody once.

Either way, the idea is the same.

Your home, better run.

And after doing our homework, we think there are rather a lot of homes that could benefit from exactly that.