Winning a cleaning contract that had an incumbent supplier feels like a straightforward win right up until the paperwork arrives. If the site had a cleaning company on it before you, and the work you’re taking over is essentially the same job with the same staff doing it, TUPE, the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations, almost certainly applies. That means the previous provider’s cleaners transfer to you automatically, on their existing pay, hours, and continuous service, whether or not you budgeted for that when you priced the bid.
None of this makes winning the contract a bad outcome. It does mean a chunk of due diligence needs to happen before you sign, not after, because the obligations attach the moment the transfer completes, not when you get around to reading the fine print.
What actually transfers, and what doesn’t
Staff transfer with their existing terms intact: pay rate, contracted hours, accrued holiday, and continuous length of service, which matters for redundancy and statutory entitlement calculations later. What doesn’t automatically transfer is the outgoing employer’s culture, their informal arrangements, or any verbal promises made outside the written contract, though those tend to surface as grievances soon after the transfer if they’re not addressed. You inherit the legal terms, not necessarily every practice that grew up around them.
Check this before you bid, not after you win
A lot of the risk in a TUPE transfer is avoidable simply by asking for the right information early enough to price it into the bid.