Hand Pallet Trucks & Pump Trucks | Manual Pallet Trucks

A manual pallet truck — also called a hand pallet truck, a pump truck, a hydraulic pallet truck, a hand pallet jack or a manual pallet jack — is the workhorse of almost every warehouse, stockroom, workshop and delivery vehicle. A hydraulic hand pump raises the forks under a pallet, you pull the load to where it is needed, and the release lever lowers it. No power, no charging, no battery to manage, and very little to go wrong.

What we sell — and what we don't

It is worth being straight about this before you go any further, because it will save you time. Not all manual pallet trucks are the same product at different prices — the range splits into commodity hand pump trucks and purpose-built specialist machines, and we sit firmly in the second group.

We do not stock the standard 2,500kg commodity pump truck. That product — 1,150 × 540mm forks, nylon or polyurethane wheels, sold by every builders' merchant and handling catalogue in the country — is a £200–£400 item, and the suppliers who specialise in it will serve you better and faster than we will. If a plain hand pallet truck for a flat, dry warehouse floor is all you need, buy it from one of them.

What we do supply is the specialist end of the manual range: UK-manufactured GPC VULCAN hand pallet trucks built for the jobs a standard truck cannot do — corrosive and washdown environments, loads above a standard rating, uneven outdoor ground, horizontal reels and cable drums, and check-weighing at the point of handling. Those start at £1,302.66. The gap between £300 and £1,300 is a gap in purpose, not simply in quality.

Manual pallet truck prices at a glance

Live prices, ex VAT, taken from our own catalogue. Every one of these manual pallet trucks is manufactured by GPC Industries in the UK.

Model	SKU	Type	Price
VULCAN Reel Handling Pallet Truck — reel size 800/1200	RHPT1000	Reel and drum truck	£1,302.66
VULCAN Galvanised & Stainless Steel Pallet Truck — 1150 × 540	SSPT1554	Stainless steel pallet truck	£1,564.50
VULCAN Premium Weigh Scale Pallet Truck — 1150mm forks	PWS1157	Weighing pump truck	£1,589.88
VULCAN Premium Weigh Scale Pallet Truck — 2500kg, 1150mm forks	PWS1125	Weighing pump truck	£1,609.56
VULCAN Premium Weigh Scale Pallet Truck — 1220mm forks	PWS1270	Weighing pump truck	£1,653.72
VULCAN Extra Heavy Duty Pallet Truck	HDPT501558	Extra heavy duty pallet truck	£1,799.34
Rough Terrain Pallet Truck	GZR11N	Rough terrain pallet truck	£1,855.26

How much does a manual pallet truck cost?

This is the question everyone asks first, and most suppliers dodge it. Here is the honest shape of the UK market in four tiers.

Budget and DIY, roughly £80–£250. Light-duty and mini pump trucks, often 1,000–1,500kg, sold through general tool retailers and marketplaces. Fine for a domestic garage, a small shop or occasional use. Not built for daily warehouse duty.
Standard trade, roughly £250–£400. The bulk of the market: 2,000–2,500kg on 1,150 × 540mm forks, nylon or polyurethane wheels, tandem load rollers. This is the tier most people mean when they say "pump truck" or "hand pump truck", and it is the tier we do not sell. If you are comparing pump trucks at this level, buy on wheel material and pump quality rather than on the badge.
Upper trade and branded specials, roughly £400–£1,100. Extra-long and extra-wide forks, quick-lift pumps, braked trucks, low-profile trucks, 3,000kg heavy duty pallet trucks, and named manufacturers' ranges.
Specialist and engineered, £1,100 upwards. Stainless steel, rough terrain, calibrated weigh scale, reel handling and very-high-capacity trucks. Comparable stainless hand pallet trucks from other UK suppliers sit around £1,150–£1,550; ten-tonne trucks run past £3,000. Our range sits here, £1,302.66 to £1,855.26.

Two things move the price far more than brand does: the environment (stainless and galvanised construction roughly triples the cost of the same truck) and instrumentation (load cells, a display and an IP rating are what separate a weigh scale truck from a plain one).

Which specialist manual pallet truck do you need?

Stainless steel and galvanised

The stainless steel pallet truck SSPT1554 conforms to EN 1757-2 and has 1,150mm forks at 160mm wide, a raised fork height of 200mm and a lowered height of 85mm, complete with entry and exit rollers. It runs on 200 × 50mm black nylon steering wheels with 80 × 70mm black nylon front rollers. Corrosion resistance is the whole point: food production, pharmaceutical, cold store, chilled and washdown areas, where a painted truck will show rust within a year and a failed one contaminates the area it fails in. £1,564.50. See stainless and galvanised pallet trucks.

Extra heavy duty

Where pallets regularly run above a standard rating — steel stock, stone and tile, drinks, dense bagged goods, castings — the HDPT501558 extra heavy duty pallet truck is built for the higher load, rather than running a standard truck permanently at the edge of its capacity. That distinction matters more than it sounds: a truck operated at its limit every day wears its pump seals, wheels and fork rollers far faster than one working comfortably inside its rating, so the "cheaper" option often is not. £1,799.34.

Rough terrain

Standard pallet trucks are designed for flat, sound, internal floors. Their small load rollers need a level surface to enter a pallet and stay under it; run one across a yard and it will jam, bog down or bend. The GZR11N rough terrain pallet truck is specified for yards, uneven ground and outdoor surfaces. £1,855.26. See rough terrain pallet trucks.

Reel handling

The VULCAN reel handling pallet truck RHPT1000 conforms to EN 1757-2, is CE marked and plated, and is designed to carry horizontal loads such as rolls, reels and cable drums that a flat-fork truck simply cannot hold safely. The chassis is reinforced at the 'A' frame with the legs strengthened along their length; the hydraulic pump has a slow-lowering hand control valve; a three-position control lever gives fingertip control of all hydraulic functions with the handle in any position; and it runs on 200 × 50mm steering wheels with 82 × 70mm roller tandems. Supplied for reel sizes 800/1200 — other fork lengths are available, so ask. £1,302.66. See reel handling pallet trucks, or drum storage and our drum handling equipment guide for vertical drums.

Weigh scale

A weighing pump truck lets you check pallet weight where the pallet already is, instead of walking loads to a platform scale. The VULCAN Premium range conforms to EN 1757-2, is CE marked and plated, and has 160mm fork width, 200mm raised and 85mm lowered fork heights, running on 180 × 50mm polyurethane steering wheels with 74 × 70mm tandem rollers. Accuracy is ±0.1% in 0.5kg increments with electronic lift-height indication in the display. It is rated IP65 — water and dust proof — so it can be used outside or on lorries and cleaned with water under normal pressure, with the fork load cells protected to the same level. The rechargeable battery lasts 70–80 hours and recharges from the mains in about four hours, cable included. Three models: 1,150mm forks (PWS1157, £1,589.88), a 2,500kg version on 1,150mm forks (PWS1125, £1,609.56) and 1,220mm forks (PWS1270, £1,653.72).

An honest limitation: this is a check-weighing tool. It is not a trade-approved scale, so you cannot use it to sell goods by weight. Our weigh scale pallet truck guide covers the approval question properly, and the range sits at weigh scale pallet trucks.

What is the maximum load capacity of a hand pallet truck?

Almost all standard hand pallet trucks on the UK market are rated 2,000kg to 2,500kg, and 2,500kg has become the default. Above that, capacity climbs in steps — 3,000kg is common in the upper trade tier, and purpose-built very-heavy-duty manual trucks reach five and even ten tonnes.

Three things are worth knowing before you buy on the headline number:

Rate to your heaviest realistic pallet, not your average one. The occasional 2,300kg pallet is what breaks a truck bought for a 1,200kg average.
The rating assumes the load is centred and evenly spread across both forks. An off-centre or end-loaded pallet puts far more through one fork and its rollers than the plate suggests. Our guide to load ratings, UDL and SWL explains why.
Capacity is not the same as usability. A 2,500kg pallet is legal to lift on a 2,500kg truck and still genuinely hard to pull on a sloped or poorly surfaced floor. That is usually the point at which a powered pallet truck earns its cost.

Fork sizes and pallet fit

Fork length and width matter as much as capacity, and getting them wrong is the most common mis-buy in the category. 1,150 × 540mm is the UK default and suits standard UK and Euro pallets entered from the short side. Wider forks (up to around 685mm) suit oversized, double-entry or plastic pallets; longer forks (1,220mm and up) suit deep or overhanging loads and stop the pallet tipping off the fork tips; narrower forks suit small and half pallets. Our guide to UK and Euro pallet sizes sets out the dimensions you are matching to.

Also check the lowered fork height against the pallets you handle. 85mm — the lowered height across the VULCAN range — clears a standard timber pallet comfortably; some plastic and captive pallets need a low-profile truck.

Hire, second-hand and where to buy

Two things people search for that we should answer plainly.

Hire. We sell; we do not hire. For a single delivery, a one-off site move or a short project, a plant or handling hire company is the right answer and will cost you a fraction of a purchase.

Second-hand. We supply new equipment only. A used standard pump truck is often a sound buy at the price, but check the pump for weeping seals, the fork rollers and their bearings for flat spots, the forks for bending or twist, and the release lever for creep — a truck that will not hold its load is scrap, not a bargain. For a stainless, weigh scale or rough terrain truck, a used one is a much bigger gamble: the corrosion resistance, calibration and heavy-duty running gear are exactly what wears out first.

Manual or powered?

Manual wins on price, simplicity and maintenance, and is the right call for occasional moves, short distances and light-to-medium daily volumes. Once you are moving pallets continuously, over long distances, up ramps or repeatedly on and off vehicles, operator fatigue and time cost start to outweigh the saving — that is the point to look at electric and powered pallet trucks. Our manual vs electric pallet trucks guide works the decision through properly, and the electric pallet truck buying guide covers the powered range.

If you need to lift to racking height rather than move at floor level, a pallet truck is the wrong tool entirely — see pallet stackers and our stacker vs pallet truck comparison.

Safe use, training and inspection

Pallet trucks sit under PUWER 1998: equipment must be suitable for the task, maintained in efficient working order, and used by people who have been given adequate instruction. There is no statutory licence for a manual pallet truck, but "adequate instruction" is not optional.

In practice that means pre-use checks on the forks, wheels, pump and release lever; keeping loads low and centred; pulling rather than pushing on the level, so the truck stays in front of you and your body is not between the load and an obstruction; never using a truck on a gradient it was not designed for; and taking a damaged truck out of service rather than working around it. Our guide to using a pallet truck safely and our pallet truck maintenance guide go into detail, and designing the lift out of the job covers the wider manual handling picture. This is a summary of good practice, not legal advice.