Horizon Platforms releases rental cost calculator supported by industry survey

Horizon Platforms has launched a free Cost of Poor Hire Calculator, letting construction managers compare two access equipment suppliers side by side on hire rates, breakdowns, downtime and re-hires.

To back it up, the UK-based rental company commissioned Censuswide to survey 300 UK construction managers in construction, M&E and fit-out during May on what poor access hire costs. The numbers reveal the average UK construction manager loses £6,343 every time an access equipment hire goes wrong, once idle labour, re-hire, overtime, rebooked subcontractors and any penalties are added up.

“We knew MEWP hire failures were costing the industry money. We did not expect the per-incident average to be over six thousand pounds. That number changes how you think about supplier procurement, “ said Kelly Burgess, Head of Hire at Horizon Platforms.

What usually goes wrong

One in six MEWP hires fail on a typical site - late delivery, breakdown on site, no-show or wrong specification. The per-incident cost distribution:

• 40% of incidents cost between £1,001 and £5,000
• 30% cost between £5,001 and £10,000
• 15% cost more than £10,000

And these are per-incident costs. The typical construction manager had 2.29 projects delayed by access hire failure in the last 12 months, carrying around £15,000 a year in disruption from access hire alone.

These hit contractor profitability directly. Over the past three years:

• 72% of construction companies have incurred contractual penalties because of access hire failures
• 71% have faced cost-recovery claims
• 57% have been hit with liquidated damages

Breakdowns on site do the most damage

Asked which single issue had caused the most monetary loss in the last 12 months, 31% of managers named breakdown on site, almost double the next-largest cause, late delivery or no-show (19%). Across all MEWP hires in the past 12 months, managers reported an average breakdown rate of 19%, late deliveries of 16%, no-shows of 14%, and wrong-equipment deliveries of 16%.

“The industry narrative on access hire failure is back-to-front. The biggest preventable cost is not logistics, it is fleet condition. A machine that arrives on time but fails on site does more damage to a programme than one that turns up late,” Kelly Burgess, Horizon Platforms. “That is why pre-delivery inspections and depth of preventative maintenance matter more than headline hire rates - and why IPAF Rental+ accreditation, which audits whether a hire business actually does those things, is worth checking before you sign.”

Pushing procurement to rethink

The findings land at a turning point for the access equipment market. Europe’s MEWP rental sector grew just 3% by revenue in 2024 to 3.5 billion euros, according to IPAF’s 2025 Rental Market Report, well below historic averages.

The slowdown sits against a backdrop of 3,827 construction insolvencies in the year to March 2026 according to the Insolvency Service) - suppliers competing on price into a soft market are precisely the cohort most likely to collapse mid-contract. According to Horizon’s survey, over half of respondents (51%) experienced a supplier going into administration.

In response, 58% of UK construction managers said they were likely to switch their primary access equipment hire supplier in the next 12 months because of service issues - 22% very likely, 35% somewhat likely, with a further 1% already in the process of switching.

And they would pay for it. The average construction manager would pay a 13% premium in hire rates for a supplier that delivered reliably and was easy to deal with:

• 45% would pay 11-20% more
• 14% would pay 21-40% more

“Years of price-driven procurement in MEWP hire have left contractors paying less per hire rate but more per project once you count the failures. The market is now telling us, in numbers, that it is ready to pay more for less hassle, said Burgess. “We built the Cost of Poor Hire Calculator so any project manager can put their own figures in and see whether the supplier they are paying the least for is actually the one costing them the most.”

The free Cost of Poor Hire Calculator lets contractors compare two suppliers side by side, factoring in hire rates, breakdowns, downtime, penalties and rehires. It is available at calculator.horizonplatforms.co.uk and free to use for non-customers as well as Horizon Platforms customers.