Overall score

Hard floors (30% of overall score) – uses the power head (or hard floor head if included) to pick up a variety of materials such as cornflakes, potting mix and flour.

Carpet (25% of overall score) – for our “quick” carpet clean score, we rub a precise amount of dust into a piece of test carpet and then, using the standard brush head, pass the vacuum over it four times and weigh the collected dirt. For our “full” carpet cleaning score, we make a further six passes and weigh the dirt collected.

Pet hair (15% of overall score) – we rub pet hair into a piece of test carpet, then use the standard brush head to vacuum it up with 10 passes and weigh the collected hair.

Ease of use (30% of overall score) – assesses the movement of the main cleaning head, looking at the vacuum’s ability to clean under low furniture, as well as versatility and mobility, ease of emptying, control use and what on-board tools are provided.

We no longer include corners and edges and handheld performance as part of our overall score, but we do note how well each model performed these tasks by giving them a good, acceptable or poor rating.