The best vacuum cleaners for pet hair can make all the difference in picking up any stubborn pet hair and even neutralising unpleasant odours your four-legged friend might leave in their wake.
And while many of the best vacuum cleaners already do a great job at picking up dust and debris on both hard floors and carpets, being able to pick up deep-rooted pet hair is a challenge that only the best vacuum cleaners for pet hair can face head-on. That's why I, alongside my team of expert reviewers, have put some of the very top choices, including a selection of the best cordless vacuums, from leading brands, such as Shark, Henry, and Halo through their paces to see if they have what it takes to tackle homes with pets.
My top-rated picks below not only excel in hair pick-up but also offer additional features that actually set them apart as being pet-specific, such as anti-hair wrap technology, anti-odour capsules, and sealed filters that ensure pet dander is contained for those with allergies. And I'm confident that one of these best vacuum cleaners for pet hair UK will be the perfect option for you, your home, and your furry friends.
Quick list
In a rush and only want the need-to-know details on the best vacuum for pet hair? Find our top picks after testing below or keep scrolling for our in-depth reviews.
Best overall
Designed specifically with pet owners in mind, the Miele Duoflex HX1 Cat & Dog is powerful and sleek - and it comes with a whole host of accessories to pick up every last stray pet hair. This cordless offering is also easy to manoeuvre and incredibly lightweight, meaning you can vacuum everything from your floors to dog beds and even cat towers.
Best for capacity
The Halo Capsule X makes light of cleaning up after your furry friends by effectively picking up deep-rooted pet hair on carpet, upholstery, and more thanks to its powerful Performance mode and dedicated pet tools for smaller jobs. Plus, its bagged system has a notable 2L capacity, helpful for those with pets who shed like no tomorrow, fuss-free emptying, and keeps dust, hair, and pet dander fully sealed from those who are allergy-prone.
Most reliable
If you're after great value for money vacuum cleaner for pet hair, the Henry Pet200 is a brilliant choice at its sub-£200 price tag, employing great suction power that works excellently at picking up pet hair with good reach. And with an impressive 9 litre capacity, it's perfect for busy homes with multiple humans and pets alike.
Best for ease of use
Although the AirRAM Platinum works great across all types of flooring because of its unique 'AirLOC technology', which ensures pick up in both forward and reverse, we think its capabilities are best shown on carpet, where it picked up a ton of deep-rooted pet hair with ease. It gets bonus points for the scent cartridges it comes with too, which help to keep unpleasant pet odours at bay.
Best lightweight
It can often be hard to find a lightweight vacuum that still offers impressive suction power - especially in a home with pets - but the Worx WX038 makes light work of this. Easy to manoeuvre around the house but without enough power to pick up even the finest of hair, the LED lights on the front of the machine also aid your cleaning endeavours.
Best upright
If you're looking for the power of a corded vacuum without the added faff, this upright Shark vac ticks those boxes. Boasting superb power levels, smart features, and good battery life, it's a great all-rounder for pet hair pick-up – especially if you have a ton of stubborn hair that doesn't want to budge.
Best vacuum cleaners for pet hair – tried and tested
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Best vacuum for pet hair overall
As Ideal Home's Certified Expert in Training for Vacuums, I'm tasked with testing a huge number of vacuums on a regular basis. And while some require a full, lengthy review to win me over (and sometimes don't quite hit the mark), the Miele Duoflex HX1 Cat & Dog impressed me from the get-go. And while I'm still writing up a more detailed review of this model, I'm confident that it's the best vacuum cleaner for pet hair we've ever tested.
Designed specifically for pet owners, this cordless vacuum offers auto-adjusted suction power to make tackling everyday debris and pet-specific cleaning conundrums a breeze. And with a generous 55 minutes of run time, it can easily whip around a whole house without needing to be charged.
Features we loved during testing
The efficient German engineering is what impressed me the most when testing the Miele Duoflex HX1 Cat & Dog. Sure, the sleek and sophisticated design are hard to ignore (and hard not to love), but the power of this model is second-to-none - especially in a house prone to dog and human hair alike.
Equipped to deal with both hard flooring and carpet, this model picked up every last strand of hair and was incredibly easy to manoeuvre thanks to its lightweight qualities. And as the owner of a fluffy dog that brings a lot of dust and dander into my house within his coat, my home felt instantly cleaner after vacuuming. Plus, with 99.99% dust retention capacity and the addition of a hygiene filter to keep allergens inside the canister, I didn't feel as though any nasty pollutants were making my way back into my house when emptying.
But the real selling point of the Miele Duoflex HX1 Cat & Dog is the attachments (and an onboard accessory holder, no less). Featuring a multi-floor electrobrush, dusting brush, upholstery nozzle, crevice nozzle, and electro compact brush, there really is everything you need to tackle every single nook and cranny of your home. Plus, they can help you target pet-prone areas like dog beds, cat trees, and perhaps even hamster wheels!
The only slight downside with this model - and what meant it couldn't quite reach the 5-star status - is that the dust bin is a lot smaller than other options on this list. However, if you're willing to empty it regularly, I really think it's worth the investment.
Keep your eyes peeled for our full Miele Duoflex HX1 Cat & Dog Cordless Vacuum review coming soon.
Best vacuum cleaner for pet hair for capacity
After testing the the Halo Capsule X, we can confidently say that it's achieved its biggest goal: making bagged vacuums cool again. What a lot of people don't know is that despite the rise in popularity of bagless vacuums, their bagged counterparts often still continue to outperform them in terms of suction power (especially on carpet), bin capacity, and ease of emptying – something of big importance when dealing with pet hair, as you'd want a model with the power to pick up even the most stubborn, deep-rooted hair, sport a large capacity so you don't have to keep emptying it mid-vacuum, and keep pet dander sealed away so as to not trigger allergies when you're emptying it.
What the Halo Capsule X does well is combine this practical bagged system with the convenience of a cordless model, offering an easy cleaning solution with all the benefits of a bagged vacuum. Plus, it has some awesome pet-specific tools that performed the best out of any other vacuum we've tested, earning it the top spot as the best vacuum cleaner for pet hair overall.
Features we loved during testing
As we briefly mentioned just above, the standout feature on the Capsule X were the included pet attachments, namely, the upholstery tool and mini power brush. The results from using both of these greatly impressed me when I tested them on my furniture that I have come to accept will never be dog hair-free – until coming across these tools, that is.
I tested the upholstery tool on my velvet sofa bed, which is typically the bane of my life, as my dog, Barney, has claimed it as his everyday lounging spot. It did a stellar job with minimal effort, picking up all the noticeable hair, leaving the sofa bed spotless. In fact, the Halo Capsule X's upholstery tool is still the best attachment that has given me the most impressive results among the vacuums I've tested. And I also used the mini power brush on my living room sofa, which my dog often dirties up with mud and dirt after being outside. With just a few swipes, my light coloured sofa looked good as new.
These tools, paired together with the Performance mode offered by the Halo Capsule X when used on carpet, make it a fantastic all-rounder for cleaning up not only pet hair, but also all the dirt and mud that can often come with owning a pet too. The use of bags means pet dander and allergens stay completely sealed and can be disposed of without a fuss. However, it can be difficult to gauge when this is full and of course, there's the extra cost of bags to consider. But, with how great the Halo Capsule X performed in our pet-specific tests, it's a slight adjustment to be made if you're used to bagless vacuums, but one we reckon you won't regret making.
Read our in-depth Halo Capsule X review for more details.
Most reliable vacuum cleaner for pet hair
The Henry Pet200 is proof that bigger is sometimes undeniably better, and fares extremely well in a bustling household where you're not only cleaning up after yourself, but pets and kids too. Featuring a 9-litre capacity, it's one of the best Henry vacuums out there and is fully equipped with an extremely generous 10m cable to bypass the problems that often come with corded models.
All in all, this heavy-duty model is robustly build and pretty much ready to take on any job, big or small, so it's no surprise that it fits the bill and more for tackling pet hair. And as it's a bagged model, you can expect excellent suction power and pet hair pick-up, picking up even the most stubborn pet hair with ease on all surfaces, as it comes with specialist floorheads for both carpet and hard flooring. Plus, it comes with a huge variety of tools and an on-board tool tidy, allowing you to keep everything to hand and all in one place when you're vacuuming any area of your home.
Features we loved during testing
Aside from being robustly built and sporting a large capacity, the 190 Ecobrush tool was a standout attachment that certainly has its perks when being used for embedded hair in the carpet and lingering strays around the house. It's a smaller, motorised attachment that collects hair in the brushes, designed to eliminate any potential for clogging.
Of course, the two big caveats with such a large canister vacuum is that, at 8kg, it's fairly hefty to push around the house and use on the stairs - but this is actually pretty light compared to the 15L capacity and 10kg weight of the Henry XL Plus vacuum cleaner. Not to mention the fact that it's the only corded option on this list, so you also have the cord to contend with when vacuuming your home.
However, since the Henry Pet200 is a bagged model, it offers fuss-free emptying and seals allergens away and even offers a special filter to reduce lingering pet odours in the home. Then, all you need to do is replace the bag when it's full.
Read our in-depth Henry Pet200 review for more details.
Best easy to use vacuum cleaner for pet hair
The Gtech AirRAM Platinum was instantly a hit for us, excelling in debris and pet hair pick-up right from the get go. Something that sets the AirRAM Platinum from any other vacuum on the market right now is its unique 'AirLOC technology', which ensures that the vacuum is not only picking up dirt and debris on the forward stroke, but also on the backstroke; ensuring that nothing gets left behind.
While we tested it on all floor types and it performed superbly on them all, we did notice that carpet was the flooring in which the vacuum's innovative technology and features shone. Creating satisfying vacuum lines across seemingly clean carpet, the dustbin quickly filled up with pet hair with just a couple of passes, solidifying it as a smart choice for anyone looking for a reliable solution for cleaning up pet hair in a pinch.
Better yet, its mess-free emptying system is genius and makes for easy maintenance – especially if the dustbin is filled with pet hair. However, even with the ease of emptying, it's not completely sealed and could still result in some dust clouds, which is something to consider if you're particularly sensitive to that.
Features we loved during testing
While the Gtech AirRAM Platinum doesn't come with additional hand tools, we think this is exactly what makes it such a great buy. It knows what it's good at and it exceeds expectations. Its simple plug and play design with extremely convenient foot controls make it very enjoyable to use and the added carrying handle for portability is a clever touch. The fact that it stands up on its own makes it so easy to just pop in a corner for easy storage and take out when you need to quickly clean up after a pet, as you simply bend the wand and press start with your foot.
It also comes with scented cartridges you can put in the vacuum's filter, perfect for eliminating unpleasant odours that can sometimes linger in dustbins even well after emptying.
However, seeing as pets shed in all areas of your home such as carpeted stairs, furniture, and upholstery, we understand that the lack of hand tools can be a deal breaker for many, especially if you don't already own a separate handheld vacuum. You can buy the AirRAM in a bundle which includes the Gtech Multi Platinum, our top rated best handheld vacuum cleaner, but this again comes at an additional cost. However, for ease and not needing to faff around with changing anything out, the AirRAM is a star.
Read our in-depth Gtech AirRAM Platinum Anti Hair Wrap cordless vacuum review for more details.