UK shipping container prices
How much does a shipping container cost in the UK?
Find estimated shipping container prices by type and condition, alongside public UK supplier prices and the dates we recorded them. Your final cost depends on the distance from the depot, how many containers you need and their actual condition. Figures here exclude VAT and delivery. Ask for a quote for your address to price the full project.
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Estimated range, + VAT — 20ft shipping container · Used
£1,470 – £2,940
No range is published for this combination.
This estimated range excludes VAT and delivery. Delivery can make a large difference to the total cost. Containers sold under the same name can also differ in condition, which explains part of the range. Ask a supplier for a quote for the container and delivery you need.
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20ft shipping container: what does it cost in the UK?
Unless a supplier states otherwise, UK prices are shown excluding VAT, ex-depot and without delivery. For hire, add delivery and collection to the weekly rate: transport can cost more than several months of rent. Each price also concerns a container in a particular condition. Use it as a guide, then ask for the total for your project.
Publishes no prices — quotes only.
| Supplier | Product | Price | Depots |
|---|---|---|---|
| Universal Containers | Conteneur 20 pieds occasion, qualité inférieure | £895+ VAT | Manchester (Irlam) |
| Universal Containers | Conteneur 20 pieds occasion, qualité supérieure | £1,595+ VAT | Manchester (Irlam) |
| S Jones Containers | Conteneur 20 pieds à la vente (à partir de) | £1,750VAT not stated | West Midlands · Londres · Liverpool |
Container prices
Shipping container prices in the UK, by type and condition
Pick the box you actually need and the range narrows usefully: a high cube and a reefer share a footprint and almost nothing else, and the gap between used and one trip is wider than the gap between most types. Each page below gives the estimated range by condition, what moves it, and which UK suppliers put a figure on it in public.
| Container type | Used | One trip | New (factory) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20ft shipping container | £1,470 – £2,940 | £3,360 – £4,095 | £3,780 – £4,725 |
| 40ft shipping container | £1,995 – £3,990 | £4,095 – £5,670 | £4,410 – £6,510 |
| High cube container | £2,205 – £4,410 | £4,410 – £5,670 | £4,725 – £6,510 |
| Refrigerated container | £5,775 – £13,650 | £9,975 – £18,900 | £8,925 – £26,250 |
| Open top container | £2,310 – £5,040 | £3,990 – £7,140 | |
| Flat rack container | £3,360 – £8,400 | £6,825 – £13,125 | |
| Tank container | £9,450 – £36,750 |
Why a range, and never a firm price
The final price depends on your project. These three points explain the range and help you prepare a quote request.
- 01
The market moves weekly
Container prices track shipping flows, the steel price and stock imbalances between ports, so a figure carved out in spring is already lying by autumn. The yards at Felixstowe, Southampton and London Gateway fill and empty on schedules nobody publishes; when a depot is overstocked the boxes go cheap that month and not the next. A range is what survives the week — a fixed price is a snapshot pretending to be a rule.
- 02
Delivery is the real bill
The box has one price and getting it onto your ground has another, and the second is very often the one that decides. Haulage is priced by distance from the nearest depot, by whether a HIAB or a tilt-bed lorry can physically reach your gate, and by whether the driver can turn round once there. Since Brexit that arithmetic is strictly domestic: sourcing from Rotterdam or Antwerp looks clever until duty, import VAT and the crossing cancel the gap, so a British buyer buys British and the depot map matters far more than the continental one.
- 03
No two boxes are the same
"Used" covers a twenty-year-old unit with pitted corner posts and a recent one still wind and watertight, and the trade sells both under that single word. Grades — cargo-worthy, wind and watertight, one trip — narrow it down, but they are trade shorthand rather than a warranty, and what you are offered is whatever happens to be standing in that yard on the day. Quantity shifts it again: nobody prices a single box for a garden the way they price a run for a site.
So the range says honestly what it knows — the order of magnitude, enough to tell whether your budget stands up and whether it is worth going further. A quote says what the range cannot: your price, at your postcode, for the unit that is actually available. Whilst an estimate is allowed to be approximate, a quote is not, which is precisely why it is worth asking for one.
Compare suppliers
Compare UK shipping container suppliers: depots and dated prices
These are real companies with real depots, not a directory padded out to fill a page. Where a supplier publishes a price, we have recorded it and dated it; where one does not, we say so rather than guess on their behalf. Read every figure as evidence of the level, on the seller's own terms — never as an offer made to you.
S Jones Containers
20ft shipping container · 40ft shipping container · Refrigerated container · Storage container · Office container · Site cabin · Converted container
DepotsWest Midlands · Londres · Liverpool · Manchester · Felixstowe · Glasgow · Leeds · Southampton · Newport
Published
Billie Box
20ft shipping container · 40ft shipping container · High cube container · Storage container
DepotsFelixstowe · Grays (Essex) · Birmingham · Middlesbrough · Liverpool · Southampton
Published
TITAN Containers UK (ArcticStore)
20ft shipping container · 40ft shipping container · Refrigerated container · Storage container · Office container
DepotsLondres · Birmingham · Glasgow
Published
Cleveland Containers
20ft shipping container · 40ft shipping container · Storage container · Office container · Converted container
DepotsStockton-on-Tees
Published
Universal Containers
20ft shipping container · 40ft shipping container · High cube container · Storage container · Converted container
DepotsManchester (Irlam)
Published
Willbox
20ft shipping container · 40ft shipping container · Storage container · Site cabin · Office container
DepotsSouthampton (Nursling)
Published