New Equipment Rental Benchmarks Reveal Efficiency Gaps Across the Construction and Access & Lifting Hire Industry

New equipment rental benchmarks released by Klipboard reveal that many construction and access & lifting equipment hire companies across the UK and Ireland are leaving significant revenue on the table due to operational inefficiencies rather than a lack of demand.

The Klipboard Rental Benchmarks Report analyses aggregated data from across the hire industry to provide insight into how equipment rental businesses are performing across key metrics such as fleet utilisation, asset availability, maintenance downtime, and revenue leakage.

One of the most striking findings is that over half of construction plant and tool hire operators are running utilisation below 70%, suggesting that the industry is constrained more by workflow efficiency and operational processes than by market demand.

At the top end of the market, only 16% of operators achieve utilisation above 80%, the highest performance bracket identified in the benchmarks. While this represents strong asset productivity for a small segment of the industry, it also highlights how much untapped capacity remains across most rental fleets.

Operational inefficiencies are also contributing directly to lost revenue. According to the benchmark:

• 39% of operators report unbilled damage as a leading source of revenue leakage, meaning money is lost not because demand is low, but because issues aren’t consistently captured and recorded during the rental lifecycle.
• One in three hire businesses say miscommunication around rental duration leads to revenue loss, indicating that simple process breakdowns are affecting profitability across the sector.

Maintenance and asset availability also remain a significant challenge for many equipment rental companies. The data shows that 37% of construction hire businesses say up to 20% of their inventory is out of service at any given time due to inspections, maintenance, or repairs.

Despite this, relatively few companies feel confident that their current systems are helping them prevent these issues before they occur. In fact, only 12% of operators say their systems effectively help prevent avoidable equipment breakdowns, leaving many businesses operating reactively rather than proactively.

These benchmarks show that the biggest opportunities for hire companies aren’t necessarily about increasing demand. Instead, they lie in improving their end-to-end process visibility, tightening how their teams communicate, and ensuring every stage of the rental process is captured and recorded accurately and is up to date.

Mark Taylor, Director of Product Management for Rental

The Rental Benchmarks Report focuses specifically on sectors most relevant to Party & Events, AV, Lighting & Broadcast, Construction, Plant & Tool hire, and Access & Lifting equipment.

By analysing operational data across the sector, the report provides hire businesses with a clear view of how they compare against industry peers and where improvements in utilisation, maintenance planning, and revenue capture could unlock significant productivity gains.

Read the Full Rental Benchmark Reports