The UK haulage industry is shedding operators at a rapid pace for various reasons, but ultimately it’s due to eroding profit margins. Established family-run businesses that have weathered recessions, fuel price spikes and regulatory change are now finding it difficult to remain viable.
A record 494 British haulage businesses entered insolvency in 2023, nearly double the number from just two years earlier. In the first half of 2024, nearly 170 more firms went under. At least seven more collapsed in September 2025.
Many smaller companies have quietly ceased trading without entering formal insolvency procedures, meaning the actual damage may be worse than the statistics suggest. Why are operators folding? The cost of operating a 44-tonne artic rose 9.2% between October 2022 and September 2023, while freight volumes dropped 10% to 15%.
Costs are declining, but margins aren’t improving
Fuel still makes up about a third of operating expenses, even as prices fall. Insurance and repair bills are climbing. Driver vacancies affected 24% of haulage businesses in the fourth quarter of 2024, down from 28% in the third quarter. In other words, one in four operators can’t find enough drivers. The drivers they do find? They’re commanding higher wages because they know they’re in demand.
Meanwhile, 33% of businesses in the sector are deemed maximum risk, up from 22% 12 months ago.
Here’s where it gets properly concerning for the industry’s future. Due to market conditions, the number of applications for new operator licences has decreased. Fewer people are looking to enter the industry.
A shrinking sector facing a looming driver gap
The number of freight road transport businesses in the UK has declined 1.5% per year on average over the five years between 2019 and 2024. The sector’s shrinking, at a time when e-commerce is booming and demand for last-mile delivery is through the roof.
The average HGV driver in the UK is around 51 years old, and the industry will need about 40,000 new drivers every year for the next five years, roughly 200,000 in total, just to keep up with retirements. Fewer under-25s are choosing the profession as well.Altogether, it presents a tough outlook for the industry’s future. Companies like W. Harrison & Sons, operating 45 lorries and 51 trailers since the early 1960s, just ceased trading after losing key contracts worth £750,000 a year. Family businesses with decades of history, wiped out in months.
Established operators are still getting knocked out
Joyce European Logistics in Kent, running about 40 artics on cross-Channel work for decades, went into administration in early 2025. WSH Logistics in Ledbury made more than 100 staff redundant when administrators were appointed in October. These aren’t fly-by-night outfits. These are established firms that couldn’t make the numbers work anymore.
Companies that have managed to stay in business have gotten serious about controlling what they can control. Among the biggest controllables? Risk. Claims. Preventable incidents that hammer your insurance premiums and eat into those razor-thin margins.
Risk control is turning into survival strategy
This is where technology stops being a “nice to have” and becomes a necessity. Smart fleets are deploying AI dashcams. Not because they’re trendy, but because they work. We’re talking about systems that can catch risky driving before it becomes a claim, provide video evidence when you’re not at fault, identify coaching opportunities to reduce long-term risk, and give you actual data on driver performance instead of gut feelings.
When you’re operating on 2% margins, preventing even one serious claim can be the difference between profit and loss for the entire year. It’s that simple.
Driver safety technology also helps with the good driver shortage problem. Good drivers want to work for operators who’ll back them up when they’re in the right. Video evidence does that. It also weeds out the genuinely risky behaviour that jeopardizes safety and makes insurance more expensive.
Consolidation is accelerating
Against this backdrop, consolidation is accelerating. The UK haulage sector has seen a steady thinning of operators, a trend widely expected to continue. Smaller businesses without the capital or technology to adapt are being squeezed out, while better-resourced firms are investing in efficiency and safety to take on displaced work.
In that context, the question is no longer whether operators can afford to invest in effective risk management tools, but whether they can afford not to.
