How to choose the best vacuum cleaner for your home

A vacuum cleaner is a must-have item for any household but, with an ever-expanding product range available, how exactly do you know which type of machine is the right one for your home? We’re here to make the decision a little easier, by explaining all the need-to-know features of vacuum cleaners – from bagged to bagless and from pet-specific models to robot designs.

We’ve also reviewed a whole heap of vacuums ourselves, to help you find the ones that are really worth buying, whatever your budget may be.

Before you start browsing vacuum cleaners, it’s important to consider the type of floor you have and how much coverage you’ll need. Some vacs are more powerful and specifically designed for use on carpets, some work best on hardfloor, coming with a sweeping mode, while others have a whole range of attachments to help you get to those tricky corners or up and down the stairs.

Bin capacity is another important factor – cleaning is a chore, so you don’t want to be adding to time spent hoovering because you’re having to empty the bin after every clean. Robot and handheld vacuums understandably have much smaller bin capacity, while upright cleaners have the largest.

If you’re looking to buy a corded vacuum for a larger living space, make sure you take note of the cable length – you don’t want to have to unplug it every few minutes as you move to a different area of your house.

Another consideration before you buy – where are you going to put the vacuum cleaner and do you need something more compact? Vacs come in all shapes and sizes, so make sure you think about the storage you have available, as well as how heavy the model is, especially if you’ll be taking it up and down stairs.

Finally, if you’re looking to buy a cordless cleaner, take note of the charging time and battery life – these can range from 15 minutes to an hour.

Keep scrolling to learn more about the different types of vacuum cleaners and how to choose the right one for your needs. 

These are the most popular and most powerful models – rotating brushes scoop up dirt from carpets and tend to be especially good at picking up pet hair. These machines are usually bulkier and heavier than other vacs, but their power means they are the best choice for a deep-clean. You can get bagged, bagless, corded and cordless versions, and most come with extendable wands to help you clean hard-to-reach areas. Choose an upright vacuum cleaner if you have a large house or a big, open plan flat.

These are much lighter than upright vacuum cleaners, consisting of a main tank with a long hose. With a motorised brush roll head, these versatile cleaners come with a wide range of different attachments, making them suitable for use on carpets, curtains, sofas and stairs, and they can easily clean tight corners. Make sure you consider the fact you’ll need more storage space for a canister vacuum, and as the main tank follows you as you clean. They can get slightly annoying, bumping into furniture along the way.

Spilt something in the kitchen and want to clean it quickly? This is the perfect job for a stick vacuum. They’re slim and lightweight, are often cordless and usually have a removable handheld vacuum attachment for those tighter corners and smaller areas that need a quick clean. Keep in mind that these models tend to be less powerful, with a battery life of up to an hour depending on the model. These are best suited to smaller, carpet-free flats.

These lightweight, portable, compact vacuum cleaners are designed to grab and go. Perfect for sucking up small messes at the dinner table, on the sofa, or cleaning your car interior, they are a more powerful version of the humble dustpan and brush. A handheld cleaner is definitely a useful addition to your cleaning cupboard, but you’ll still need a full sized vacuum for cleaning the floor. For extra convenience, we would recommend choosing a cordless model.

Animal hair seems to get everywhere, so if you have a pet you’ll need to look at a vacuum cleaner with much stronger suction than a regular model to make sure your home gets properly cleaned, as well as a good filter and tangle-free brush rolls to stop all that pesky hair getting trapped around the brush. If someone in your household suffers from allergies, make sure you choose a vacuum with HEPA filtration, to minimise the effect of pet hair and dust. We would also recommend choosing a model with cleaning attachments, so if your dog’s favourite hang out place is the sofa, you can easily get it clean again.

If you choose a bagged machine, this simply means the vacuum will suck all the dust and dirt into a bag, which you will then need to remove and dispose of.

If you choose a bagless model, the debris will go into a container, which you will then remove and empty. Both options are easy to do, however if you have allergies or asthma, we recommend a bagged machine, as this will minimise the amount of dust that you are exposed to.

The downside to a bagged vacuum cleaner though, is the on-going cost of buying replacement bags as you use and dispose of them. We’ve tested and reviewed a variety of bagless vacuum cleaners, so take a look to make sure you get one you can rely on.

The main difference here is that cordless models run on battery, meaning your cleaning time will be anywhere between 15 minutes and one hour, depending on the machine you buy. The main benefit to cordless vacuums is that they tend to be much lighter than corded models. The lack of cord also makes them super easy to navigate around the home without getting caught on furniture, or needing to unplug and plug back in when you move into a different room. However, corded vacs do tend to be more powerful, meaning they’re better at picking up dust. Corded vacs also have a much larger dust capacity, so you won’t have to spend so much time emptying the machine. We’ve tested out a range of cordless vacuums for ourselves though, to find out which ones will do the best job at cleaning, leaving your home looking spick and span.

Robot vacuum cleaners hold an ever-increasing share of the vacuum cleaner market. These intelligent machines can map your home layout using built-in cameras and smart sensor technology, so they know exactly where to clean, choosing the correct level of power depending on the floor surface. Invest in one of these machines and you can schedule when and where the robot should clean, usually via an app. The best thing about a robot vacuum cleaner is that they require minimal effort – it knows when it needs to return to its base to be charged, it can be set to clean while you’re at work each day, or if you’re in the house, most newer models even come with voice control.

Many brands have now created dual-use cleaners, which can vacuum as well as mop, which is particularly handy if you’re short on storage space. Although they are an easy, hands-free way of cleaning, they can’t navigate stairs or get into every little dusty corner of your home, which means you will still need a standard vacuum cleaner. These machines are pretty pricey too, with models ranging from £150-£1500. With big brands like Dyson and Miele launching robot vacuums, and lesser known brands such as Eufy and Neato, we tested robot vacuum cleaners to find out exactly which ones are worth the splurge.

Now you’ve worked out exactly what type of vacuum cleaner you need, take a look at our reviews to find one you can trust to get the cleaning done quickly. To help get you started, here is a selection of our most popular reviews.

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If having a clean home fills you with joy, the Shark stratos will make you euphoric. The suction power on carpet and hard floors is a dream. It’s constantly working out what power levels you need to pick up the most mess. All you have to do is steer while it uses clean sense IQ technology to automatically sense the mess you can’t see and adjust cleaning power for up to 50 per cent more dirt pick-up.

No pet hair, clothing fluff or larger-than-usual objects came close to getting stuck in the brush, making it useful for busy households when there’s barely enough time to use it, let alone untangle things that are clogging it up. We love the LED highlights that helped us make the most out of every use, showing us where dirt had piled up and illuminating under furniture. It was also super easy to convert into a handheld vacuum for cleaning staircases or car upholstery.

But there are three features that impressed us the most. Firstly, it has a dual battery pack offering 120 minutes of runtime, which is double the next best model. Secondly, you can attach an anti-odour pack to make the floors smell as good as they look. Finally, the hose folds back on itself for compact and freestanding storage and charging.

- Zoe Griffin

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From the moment you first run this vacuum over your carpet, you’ll notice how much hair it picks up, thanks to the super powerful suction. It also uses a DuoClean floor head, which has two motorised brush rolls that work together to lift all dust, dirt, debris and hair from the floor. Don’t worry about removing pet hair from your brush head, either, as the anti-hair wrap plus makes this task easy. The stratos pet pro also comes with a crevice tool, upholstery tool, and pet multi-tool for various cleaning tasks and to make sure you can get into all those nooks and crannies.

Aside from how powerful this vacuum is, we absolutely loved that it came with anti-odour technology, to get rid of any bad smells within your vacuum that could otherwise transfer to the air. To do this, it uses a unique cartridge system that is inserted in the floor head, releasing a fresh, clean smell.

It’s a really nice machine to push around, gliding across the carpet and hard floor with ease, while the large bin started filling up with fur that we couldn’t even see with the naked eye. The vacuum has three settings: one for hard floors, another for low pile and a third for thick pile. So, whatever flooring you have, this appliance should work a treat. It also has the Shark signature LED headlights, which did a great job of highlighting dust and fur on hard flooring but didn’t do so well when it came to illuminating carpeted areas, especially when it was light outside.

If you’re worried about cleaning your stairs with this machine, because it’s an upright, don’t be – it has a powered lift-away, so you can turn it into a portable vacuum with just one simple click. A worthy model for our top pick.

- Rachael Penn

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The best roomba iRobot makes, the combo j7+ is a self-emptying robot vacuum cleaner with an intelligent mopping function that switches modes automatically when it moves from hard floors to rugs and carpets.

Roomba’s best-in-class obstacle detection can spot and avoid common household hazards such as dangling cables, shoelaces, stray socks, toys and pet mess, meaning you can confidently set it going without having to “pre-tidy” – exceptionally handy in busy homes. The robot even sends you pictures of anything it’s avoided, so you can clear the space and send it around again (or, if you’re lazy, like us, dismiss the notification and promise you’ll get round to it later).

We would recommend choosing the version with the self-emptying charging base. It sounds like a jet engine when it’s emptying, but the bin holds weeks’ worth of dust and makes the robot basically fully autonomous.

The mopping tank is small, so you’ll need to refill with detergent fairly frequently if you use it routinely. The app lets you reduce the amount of water being used, to help extend the mopping function further between refills.

- Steve Hogarty

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With an impressive 750W of power at every use, this strong, durable vacuum cleaner will change the way you tidy your house. It makes doing housework faster and more efficient, which will then leave you with more leisure time to sit back and enjoy your clean surroundings.

The compact design suits quick tidy-ups, while the 8m cord length is perfect for when you want to tackle the whole house without getting tied up in knots. Whether you choose hard-floor mode or carpet mode, it goes to war on dust with a satisfying buzz.

Even better is that it’s just as easy to use on stairs as it is on floors, as the canister detaches from the main unit at the push of a button to transform into a light handheld that reaches all the corners and edges.

Powerful LED lights were very useful when it came to cleaning under furniture, and we also loved that this vacuum not only has a HEPA filter but also Shark’s anti-allergen complete seal technology, which captures and traps 99.9 per cent of dust and allergens.

- Zoe Griffin

For more reviews, read our round-ups of the best pet, robot, cordless and corded vacuums