With a basic salary of £276.92 per week and duties including dusting and vacuuming, it may sound like a run of the mill cleaning job.
But the successful applicant for a “housekeeping assistant” role advertised by Buckingham Palace must also be prepared for rather less conventional tasks; running the Queen’s bath and cleaning her priceless antiques, to name but two.
Would-be maids or manservants should perhaps be warned that with 78 bathrooms in Buckingham Palace, knowing which one to fill up may be a job in itself.
The advert on the monarchy’s official website for a new member of “H branch” of the Royal Household provides a fascinating insight to the pampered world of the Royal family and those lucky enough to stay as guests at the Palace.
The role is nothing if not varied: the maid or manservant who gets the job might find themselves cleaning the loos one day and helping a visiting president or monarch to dress the next.
The advertisement specifies that chores will include “personal maiding/valeting duties for guests as required including packing and unpacking, pressing and preparing clothes, arranging dry cleaning, care of jewellery, running baths, assisting with dressing if required and arranging the service of tea and breakfast trays”.
The servant who takes on the role will also “have contact with members of the Royal family” and must, of course, have an “ability to maintain confidentiality”.
Other essential qualities include being "able to use initiative and possessing a motivated, pro-active attitude".
Making the Royal family’s beds, cleaning their dirty sheets, and “setting up rooms for occupation by members of the Royal family” will be part of the £14,400-a-year job.
Ominously, the servant must also be prepared to clean “internal glass”, though the advert does not mention that the Palace has 760 windows. Nor does it mention whether changing light bulbs will be part of the job; the Palace has 40,000 of them.
Steady hands are a must: the role will involve cleaning “general furnishings and antique furnishings, upholstery, curtains, objects d’art, photo and picture frames (under advice from the Royal Collection) mirrors, silver and brass”.
Accommodation is part of the package, but applicants must be prepared to travel to other royal residences such as Balmoral for three months of the year.
H Branch of the Royal Household is specifically responsible for the care of guests and maintaining the “cleanliness, presentation and general upkeep of all accommodation”.
Buckingham Palace has 52 royal and guest bedrooms and 188 staff bedrooms among its total of 775 rooms, and employs more than 800 staff in total.
Among them are two full-time horological conservators who wind up and maintain the 350 clocks and watches in the Palace.
Other unusual chores carried out by staff include setting out bowls of snacks such as nuts and Bombay mix left for the Queen around Buckingham Palace in case she gets peckish.
One servant also has the job of “dragging” the gravel on the Palace forecourt first thing every morning, including Christmas Day, and inspecting it twice more during the day to keep it looking pristine.
Other current vacancies in the Royal household include sub-organist at the Chapel Royal in St James’s Palace, which commands a salary of £8,400 for nine hours work per week.
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