National Tool Hire adds building materials: procurement takeaways for project teams
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
National Tool Hire is expanding its online rehire marketplace to sell building materials such as bricks, plasterboard and cement, alongside its existing tools and equipment. By partnering with builders’ merchants across the UK, the platform will allow DIY and trade customers to order materials alone or bundled with hired kit, with nationwide delivery. The move targets time savings on small to medium projects where site teams currently source consumables and plant separately, streamlining procurement for short-duration construction and maintenance works.
Technical Brief
- Online marketplace integrates building materials ordering directly with existing tool and equipment hire workflows.
- Supply chain is anchored on a distributed network of local builders’ merchants across the UK.
- Materials catalogue explicitly includes bricks, plasterboard and cement as standard consumables for small works.
- Alice Hughes, head of buying, confirms the expansion responds to repeated hirer requests for materials sourcing.
- Platform supports materials-only orders, decoupling consumables procurement from plant hire when required.
- Ordering is executed entirely online “in just a few clicks”, minimising phone-based merchant coordination.
- Nationwide delivery from local suppliers reduces need for ad hoc site runs to merchants for top‑ups.
Our Take
Within our 849 Infrastructure stories, UK coverage has recently skewed towards plant and equipment rather than core materials like bricks, plasterboard and cement, so National Tool Hire’s move edges it closer to full‑stack site supply rather than pure hire.
For contractors, bundling bricks, plasterboard and cement with tool hire can simplify logistics on smaller UK projects, but it also risks tighter credit control as more spend is concentrated with a single supplier.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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