Best cordless vacuum UK 2026: what pascals and air watts really compare, and how long it lasts on the floor

There's no single answer because there's no single unit. On 8 September 2026 we counted 35 different cordless vacuum listings on Amazon Spain, the catalogue behind this guide, across eight searches in the category and leaving out corded models. Twenty-two declare pascals, twenty-two declare motor watts, ten declare air watts and seven declare no suction figure at all. Only four declare pascals and air watts together, and they're the only ones you can hold up against both sides of the shelf.

The three units measure different things. Pascals are pressure with the tube blocked, which never happens while you clean. Motor watts are electricity going in. Air watts combine pressure and airflow, which is what pulls dirt off the floor. In the count, the median declared figure is 55,000 pascals, 135 air watts and 600 motor watts.

And a pattern shows up once the count is sorted: of the 14 listings declaring 50,000 pascals or more, only one also gives air watts. The big number and the comparable figure almost never travel in the same headline.

On 22 September 2026 the first two Google results in the UK for 'cordless vacuum' were two makers' own shops, Gtech and Vax, and neither cordless range page gives a suction figure in any unit: no pascals, no kilopascals, no air watts (both read on 22 September 2026). What they sell on is runtime, weight and features. That isn't an oversight by two brands, and the reason is written into the law.

The ecodesign rules for vacuum cleaners, Regulation (EU) No 666/2013 in the version kept in UK law, set requirements for 'electric mains-operated vacuum cleaners' and, in Article 1, 'shall not apply to' 'wet, wet and dry, battery operated, robot, industrial, or central vacuum cleaners'. The rule that brought order to plug-in vacuums has never covered battery ones, so each maker chooses the unit it advertises in, or none at all. That's why the translator above explains what each figure measures instead of converting one into another: there's no published formula to do it.

The minutes in the headline are the lowest mode and, almost always, with the machine used as a handheld and without the powered floor head that cleans the floor. That head has its own motor and draws on the same battery. Four of the machines in this guide publish their full table in their own listing, and that's where the difference shows: the Conga Rockstar RS80 advertises 65 minutes and declares 20 in boost with the floor head fitted, 31% of the headline.

UK makers write the same condition when they write one. The footnotes on Vax's cordless range page say the runtimes they mark are measured 'in standard power mode on hard floor, with floor brush switched off', and the 'up to 90 minutes' on one of its models is two 4.0Ah batteries of 45 minutes each. Gtech's range page sells a 'Long 80 Minute Runtime' without saying in which mode (both read on 22 September 2026). When the maker writes the condition, the figure is useful; when it doesn't, the headline number doesn't tell you which mode it belongs to.

A cordless vacuum ages at the rate of its battery, so the line that decides how long it lasts is whether the battery comes out. In this guide, the spec sheets of the Conga Rockstar RS80 (33.6 V, 2,500 mAh) and the Conga Rockstar P50 (25.2 V, 2,200 mAh) declare a removable battery; those of the RS50, the RX50, the dreame R10 and the Xiaomi G20 don't say, and what a spec sheet doesn't declare can't be assumed. The two UK makers at the top of the search both sell batteries as parts: Gtech offers its batteries to replace a worn one or to 'double your runtime', and Vax sells one of its cordless models with two 'removable' ONEPWR batteries.

UK law backs the buyer on the same point. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, durability is one of the aspects of satisfactory quality (section 9(3)(e)), what the maker says in advertising or labelling counts when judging it (section 9(5) and (6)), and a fault that shows up within six months of delivery is taken to have been there from the start unless it's shown otherwise (section 19). A runtime claim on the listing is one of those public statements, so it's worth saving the page when you buy. If you ask us, on a machine you expect to keep for years, a battery you can swap is worth more than the last 50 air watts: two of the three podium machines declare one.

With the count in front of us, we recommend the Conga Rockstar RS80, for three reasons you can check on its own listing: it declares 200 air watts, publishes its full runtime table and says the battery comes out. The P50 does the same three things with 80 air watts, and the Z30 declares more air watts but publishes no table. With the floor head fitted it keeps 20 of its 65 minutes in the most demanding mode, the largest share among the machines in this guide that publish a floor-head table.

Who it isn't for: a home with thick carpet in several rooms, where 200 air watts fall short of the dreame Z30's 310; and anyone who wants to compare on pascals, because this spec sheet doesn't declare them.

It comes up again and again in the questions UK searchers ask: as good as a Dyson, better than a Dyson, Dyson's biggest competitor. On declared figures, the Dyson V8 Absolute declares 115 air watts on its Amazon Spain listing, the third-lowest of the ten listings in the count that give that unit and below their median of 135, while the count includes listings declaring 300 and 350. That doesn't make it a bad buy: what this brand is chosen for is its balance in the hand, its floor head and its parts and service, and none of those is declared in any unit.

So the honest answer to 'as good as' depends on what you compare. On the figure that measures what comes off the floor, several listings declare more. On handling, no listing gives a number, and a machine that's awkward to use gets used less. What is worth checking is that whichever listing you pay for declares something you can check.

They're two different machines and they don't compete. A cordless wet and dry vacuum, which UK makers such as Vax and Gtech sell as a hard floor cleaner, has a wet roller that lifts stuck-on dirt from hard floors and cleans itself afterwards; a stick vacuum works dry and also does carpet, upholstery, stairs and the car. In the count, the wet and dry models declare pascals and almost never air watts, because the air isn't doing all the work.

If your home has hard floors and what bothers you is marks and spills, the hard floor cleaner does more. If there are carpets, pets or stairs, the stick vacuum stays the main machine and the hard floor cleaner is the second.