Does warehouse racking need to be certified or inspected by law?

There is no statutory certificate for a rack in the way there is for a lifting accessory, but racking is work equipment under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, so it must be suitable, properly installed and inspected where deterioration could cause danger. HSE guidance HSG76 and the SEMA codes set out what that means in practice: a load notice displayed on every run stating the rated bay and beam loads for the configuration as actually built, regular visual inspection by a trained person on site, and a periodic inspection by a technically competent person - SEMA's rack safety adviser scheme exists for this - typically annually. If you change the beam levels you change the rated capacity, so the load notice must change with it.

What is the best racking system for a warehouse?

It depends on how the load arrives rather than how heavy it is. If goods come in on pallets and a forklift will place them, pallet racking gives the highest density with full selectivity. If stock is carried and picked by hand, heavy-duty or longspan shelving is faster to use and far cheaper to install. If you are storing long lengths of timber, tube, bar or board that will not sit across pallet beams, cantilever racking is the only sensible answer because it has no front upright in the way. Most real warehouses end up with a mix: pallet racking for bulk, shelving at the picking face and cantilever or vertical racks for raw material.

Why do some racking products on this page have no price?

Five of the 17 products here are quoted rather than priced: STOW conventional pallet racking, the STOW cantilever racking system, STOW mezzanine platforms, SSI Schaefer R3000 industrial shelving and the BUTT aluminium loading rails. These are engineered to a layout, so the cost depends on your building height, bay widths, pallet footprint, floor loading and bay count - there is no single product to attach a single price to. The other twelve are GPC Industries racks you can configure and buy online now, from £1,282.92 to £5,506.26.

What is the difference between parallel and tapered cantilever arms?

Both GPC welded cantilever ranges publish the same load rating - 200 kg per arm - so tapered is not the lighter-duty option despite often being described that way. A tapered arm reduces in section towards the tip, which takes up less depth at the top of the rack and suits long loads that are supported along their length; parallel arms keep full section to the tip. Price behaviour differs more than capacity does: single-sided, tapered costs £177.12 (9.2%) more than parallel, but double-sided it costs £159.42 (6.7%) less. If you need more than 200 kg per arm, neither welded range is suitable - the configurable CR-series is rated at 250 kg per arm.

Is it cheaper to buy two small bar racks or one large one?

For the Heavy Duty Bar CUBI-Rack, two three-column racks cost £3,821.16 for six columns against £4,289.10 for a single six-column rack - so two smaller units are £467.94, or 10.9%, cheaper for the same column count. Three columns is the value point in the range at £636.86 per column, and the step to four columns costs 68.4% more money for 33% more capacity. The trade-off is that two units are not one continuous run and need slightly more floor length, so if you are storing lengths that need supporting across the full span, buy the single rack despite the price.

What load capacity do mezzanine platforms offer?

STOW Mezza-stow modular mezzanine flooring publishes load capacities from 350 kg/m2 up to 800 kg/m2. Those are structurally different builds rather than settings, so the capacity has to be decided before the platform is designed and priced. The system is modular, which means it can be extended, moved or reconfigured later - unlike a conventional welded steel floor - and it takes staircases, handrails and safety gates, and integrates with pallet racking and shelving. It is quoted per layout, so the conversation starts with your floor plan and intended use.

Which racking and shelving brands do you supply?

Four. GPC Industries (UK) manufactures the twelve priced racks and shelf units on this page - cantilever racking, bar racks, sheet racking, vertical storage racks and small-parts shelf units. STOW supplies the quoted systems: conventional pallet racking with bolted frames rated to heights of up to 40 metres and bay loads of up to 45 tonnes, the cantilever racking system, and Mezza-stow mezzanine platforms. SSI Schaefer supplies the R3000 heavy-duty industrial shelving system. BUTT supplies the aluminium loading rails.

Warehouse Racking Systems & Industrial Shelving

Q: Do you sell second-hand or used pallet racking?

No - the GPC racks here are new manufactured units and the STOW systems are new and made to order on an indicative 30-45 day lead time. If you buy used elsewhere, the biggest risk is not the condition of the steel but mixing components between manufacturers: beam end connectors, upright punching patterns and section profiles are manufacturer-specific, and a beam that physically clips into another maker's upright has no tested rated capacity in that combination. Without knowing the original manufacturer and configuration you also cannot establish the rated bay load, which means you cannot produce a correct load notice.

Warehouse racking and industrial shelving cover everything from a single bar rack in a fabrication shop to a full pallet racking installation designed around your forklift and your pallet sizes. This page holds both, and the first thing worth knowing is that they are bought in two completely different ways.

Read this first: half this range is priced, half is quoted

There are 17 products on this page and they split cleanly in two. Twelve are GPC Industries racks and shelf units you can configure and buy online now, priced from £1,282.92 to £5,506.26. They arrive as manufactured units — you will need a forklift to unload them, which GPC states on every one — and you bolt or fix them down yourself.

The other five carry no price, and that is deliberate rather than an oversight. STOW conventional pallet racking, the STOW cantilever racking system, STOW mezzanine platforms, SSI Schaefer R3000 heavy-duty industrial shelving and the BUTT aluminium loading rails are all engineered to a layout. There is no single price because there is no single product: the cost depends on your building height, your bay widths, your pallet footprint, your floor loading and how many bays you need. These are quoted per layout, and our pallet racking page gives an indicative 30–45 day lead time on the STOW system.

It is worth being blunt about which half answers which question. If you have arrived here looking for warehouse pallet racking or a mezzanine floor, you are looking at the quoted half — the products with no price on them. If you have arrived looking for somewhere to put steel bar, sheet material, timber or small parts, you are looking at the priced half and you can order today. Both are real; they just run on different clocks.

What "warehouse racking" actually means, and what the systems are called

Warehouse racking is the general term for steel structures that store goods off the floor and use the height of a building. In practice UK sites mean one of five things by it:

Pallet racking — adjustable beam-and-frame bays holding palletised goods several levels high, loaded by forklift. Sometimes called APR, or adjustable pallet racking. The STOW system here uses bolted frames rated to heights of up to 40 metres and bay loads of up to 45 tonnes, with boltless micro-alloy beam connectors and safety pins to stop a beam being knocked out of its seat.
Cantilever racking — arms projecting from uprights, with no front column in the way, for long loads that will not sit across pallet beams. See the cantilever racking range.
Longspan and heavy-duty shelving — hand-loaded levels for boxes, parts and archive, no forklift involved. The SSI Schaefer R3000 combines shelving, long-span and upright storage in one boltless lug system.
Long-load and vertical racks — bar racks, sheet racks and vertical storage for raw material. See vertical storage racks, bar storage racks and vertical sheet racks.
Mezzanine platforms — a raised steel floor that adds a level rather than adding bays.

If you are choosing between the first three, the deciding question is not capacity. It is whether the load arrives on a pallet and whether a forklift will place it. Pallet in, forklift placing it: pallet racking. Boxes carried by hand: shelving. Six-metre lengths of tube: cantilever. Our guide to warehouse racking types works through the comparison properly, and industrial shelving vs pallet racking takes the two most commonly confused options head on.

Cantilever racking: the published load ratings do not say what our own copy used to imply

We stock three cantilever ranges and the specification sheets are worth reading carefully, because the obvious assumption is wrong.

Range	Published load per arm	Construction	Price
Cantilever Racking — Parallel Arms (GCR110/GCR210)	200 kg	Fully welded	£1,917.00 single-sided / £2,392.74 double-sided
Cantilever Racking — Tapered Arms (GCR120/GCR220)	200 kg	Fully welded	£2,094.12 single-sided / £2,233.32 double-sided
Cantilever Racking — configurable (CR-series)	250 kg	Bolted, height-adjustable arms in 150 mm increments	£3,148.74–£3,652.80 starter bay, £1,290.00 extension bay

Parallel and tapered arms carry exactly the same published rating — 200 kg per arm. The common framing, which our own copy on this page used to repeat, is that parallel arms suit heavy evenly-distributed loads and tapered arms suit lighter longer items. That is a reasonable description of the geometry, but it is not what the load ratings say: GPC publishes 200 kg per arm for both. Choose tapered because a tapering arm sheds a long load more kindly at the tip and takes up less depth at the top of the rack, not because you believe it is the lighter-duty option. If you need more than 200 kg per arm, neither welded range is the answer — the configurable CR-series is, at 250 kg per arm, 25% more.

The single-vs-double decision inverts the ranking, and almost nobody checks

Going double-sided doubles your load faces off one row of uprights. On the parallel range that costs +£475.74, or +24.8%. On the tapered range it costs +£139.20, or +6.6% — which is the best value step anywhere in this collection.

The consequence is the part worth writing down. Single-sided, the tapered rack is £177.12 (9.2%) dearer than the parallel. Double-sided, the tapered rack is £159.42 (6.7%) cheaper than the parallel. The cheaper range flips depending on how many sides you buy, on identical published arm ratings. If you have an aisle with access from both sides and you were about to buy parallel because it looked like the cheaper range, check the double-sided prices before you order.

On the configurable CR-series, the cheap upgrades are arm length and arm count: going from 12×500 mm arms to 12×1000 mm arms — doubling the reach — adds £262.74, or 8.3%, and adding three more arms at 500 mm adds £217.68, or 6.9%. Specify the longer arms at the outset if there is any chance of a wider load; retro-fitting reach is not an option. Full detail in the cantilever racking buying guide, and cantilever racking vs pallet racking if you are still deciding between the two.

Bar racks: there is a step in the price curve that costs 68% for 33% more capacity

The Heavy Duty Bar CUBI-Rack is rated at 3,000 kg per column — by a distance the heaviest published rating in this collection — and comes in two to eight columns. The per-column cost does not fall smoothly as you scale up. It falls, jumps sharply, then falls again.

Columns	Price	Per column	Step
2	£1,648.74	£824.37	—
3	£1,910.58	£636.86 — best value	+£261.84 (+15.9%)
4	£3,217.50	£804.38	+£1,306.92 (+68.4%)
5	£3,753.96	£750.79	+£536.46 (+16.7%)
6	£4,289.10	£714.85	+£535.14 (+14.3%)
7	£4,890.12	£698.59	+£601.02 (+14.0%)
8	£5,506.26	£688.28	+£616.14 (+12.6%)

Three columns is the value point at £636.86 per column. Going to four costs £1,306.92 more — 68.4% more money for 33% more capacity — and pushes the per-column cost back up 26.3%. The model codes change family at that point, from the BRP2x series to the BRP0x series, which is the likely explanation: the four-column unit is not simply a three-column unit with a column added.

That creates a genuinely useful arithmetic result. Two three-column racks cost £3,821.16 for six columns. One six-column rack costs £4,289.10. Buying two smaller racks is £467.94 — 10.9% — cheaper for exactly the same column count. The honest caveat: two units are not one continuous run, they need a little more floor length overall, and if you are storing lengths that want supporting across the full span then the single rack is the right purchase despite the price. But if you are storing assorted bar and section in sorted columns, which is what most fabrication shops are doing, two threes beat one six.

Below four columns the maths goes the other way: two two-column racks cost £3,297.48 against £3,217.50 for one four-column, so at four columns the single unit wins by £79.98. See also timber, pipe and steel bar storage racks.

Sheet racking: the per-bay cost bottoms out at seven bays

Sheet Racking is fully welded with intermediate floor bracing to support sheet material, and runs from four to ten bays. The per-bay cost improves as you scale — but only up to a point, and then it goes backwards.

4 bays — £1,883.46 (£470.87 per bay)
5 bays — £2,243.46 (£448.69)
6 bays — £2,639.46 (£439.91)
7 bays — £3,017.94 (£431.13 per bay — the minimum)
8 bays — £3,508.32 (£438.54 — per-bay cost rises)
9 bays — £3,957.36 (£439.71)
10 bays — £4,344.72 (£434.47)

Seven bays is the efficient buy. The eighth bay costs £490.38 — the single most expensive bay in the range — and it drags the per-bay average up rather than down. If you are weighing up seven against eight, seven is better value per bay and eight is better value only if you genuinely need the eighth. Ten bays is the second-best per-bay figure, so if you are going past eight there is no reason to stop at nine.

Small parts: nine tray sizes, and the specification is the tray

The Small Parts Shelf Units (ASU) range runs £1,285.02–£2,359.68 across 14 configurations, in full-height and part-height units at 300, 400 and 500 mm depths. The thing to specify is not the unit, it is the tray. GPC publishes nine tray sizes (H × W × D, mm):

A 90 × 117 × 300 · B 90 × 234 × 300 · C 140 × 234 × 300
D 90 × 117 × 400 · E 90 × 234 × 400 · F 140 × 234 × 400
G 90 × 117 × 500 · H 90 × 234 × 500 · I 140 × 234 × 500

The handle doubles as a stop, so a tray can be drawn out and left suspended from its shelf — GPC quotes around 90% clear picking that way — and lifted off to be carried to the bench. Measure your largest awkward component against the 140 mm tray heights before choosing, because that is the dimension people get wrong. Every unit listed here is a starter bay; GPC states that extension bays, dividers, handles/stops and replacement trays are available to order by phone rather than through the configurator, so if you want a run rather than a single bay, ask us and we will price it. See also small parts storage, bins and tote racks, plus bin racks and tote pan racks.

Mezzanine platforms: the biggest search in this category, behind one quoted product

When you have run out of floor but still have height, a mezzanine adds a level rather than adding bays, and it is usually far cheaper than moving premises. The STOW Mezza-stow modular flooring system is quoted per layout, with published load capacities from 350 kg/m² up to 800 kg/m², and unlike a conventional welded steel floor it is designed to be extended, moved or reconfigured later. It integrates with pallet racking and shelving, and takes staircases, handrails and safety gates.

Being straight about the scope: this is one product on this page and it carries no price, because a mezzanine is a designed structure, not a unit. The load capacity you need — 350 kg/m² is a different structure from 800 kg/m² — plus column positions, deck height, staircase locations and edge protection all have to be worked out before a number exists. There will usually be building control and fire considerations too. If you want a mezzanine, the conversation starts with your floor plan and your intended use, and our guide to mezzanine floors and platforms sets out what to have ready.

New, made-to-order, or second-hand — and where we are not the right supplier

A large part of the demand for warehouse racking is for used bays, and it is worth saying plainly that we do not sell second-hand racking. The GPC racks on this page are new manufactured units; the STOW systems are new and made to order on a 30–45 day lead time. If your requirement is forty bays of used racking delivered next week at the lowest possible cost, a used-racking dealer is the right call and we would rather tell you that than waste your time.

If you do buy used, there is one risk that matters more than the condition of the steel, and it is easy to miss. Mixing components between manufacturers is not safe by default. Beam end connectors, upright punching patterns and section profiles are manufacturer-specific, and a beam that physically clips into another maker's upright has not been tested in that combination and carries no rated capacity. Second-hand bays frequently arrive as a mix. The related problem is paperwork: without knowing the original manufacturer, section and configuration you cannot establish the rated bay load, which means you cannot produce a correct load notice — and a rack in use without a known rated load is a rack nobody can safely load. Buy used by all means, but buy a known matched system, get the manufacturer and configuration in writing, and have it signed off.

Loading, load notices and inspection: what UK law actually expects

Racking is work equipment, so the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 apply: it must be suitable for its use, properly installed, and inspected where deterioration could cause a dangerous situation. HSE guidance HSG76 and the SEMA codes of practice set out how that is done in practice for storage equipment.

There is no statutory certificate for a rack in the way there is for a lifting accessory, which is why the question "does racking need to be certified?" gets confusing answers. What is expected is: a load notice displayed on every run stating the rated bay and beam load for the configuration as it is actually built; regular visual inspection by a trained person on site, with damage reported; and a periodic inspection by a technically competent person — SEMA's rack safety adviser scheme exists for exactly this — typically annually. Change the beam levels and you have changed the rated capacity, so the load notice has to change with it.

The damage that puts racking out of service is almost always forklift impact at the base of an upright, so protect the vulnerable ends: upright guards and barriers are cheap against the cost of a bay replacement, and safety barriers keep traffic off the frames in the first place. Our guide to warehouse racking inspection covers SEMA, HSG76 and what the law requires in detail. This page is guidance and not a substitute for your own risk assessment.

Getting the numbers right before you order

Two figures decide most racking specifications and both are routinely misread. The first is the pallet footprint you standardise on, because it drives beam length, frame depth and aisle width — start with UK pallet sizes explained. The second is which load rating applies to what: a per-arm figure, a per-level figure, a bay total and a uniformly distributed load are four different numbers, and a rack specified against the wrong one is overloaded from day one. Load ratings explained — UDL, SWL and what the numbers mean decodes every figure on the spec sheets in this range.

On finish: the GPC racks and the STOW frames are offered painted or galvanised. Galvanised earns its premium outdoors, in wash-down areas and anywhere damp; painted is fine in a dry heated building. Galvanised vs powder coated steel works through the decision. And if the stock needs to move rather than sit, static vs mobile storage covers when castors are worth it — we stock mobile versions of both the bar rack and the vertical sheet rack.

Hand-loaded shelving for stores and stockrooms

Not every storage problem needs a forklift. For a stores area, stockroom or archive, heavy-duty shelving gives faster selective access than racking and costs a fraction as much to install. Start with fitting out a stores area, choosing shelving for heavy loads, longspan shelving, choosing steel shelving, boltless shelving and archive and office shelving for files, boxes and records.

Buying racking and shelving from KC Supply

KC Supply is run by people who have spent their careers around warehouses, so we specify storage for how it will actually be loaded rather than for the headline figure on the datasheet. The twelve priced racks above can be configured and ordered now; the five quoted systems — STOW pallet racking, STOW cantilever, STOW mezzanine platforms and SSI Schaefer R3000 shelving — need a short conversation about your building and your stock first, and we would rather have that conversation than sell you the wrong bay count.

Fitting out a garage rather than a warehouse? Our garage shelving and racking guide covers shelf ratings, sizing and damp, and our garage storage ideas cover the wider layout.

Whatever you install, pair it with the equipment that feeds it: pallet trucks for ground-level movement and pallet stackers if you need to reach a second beam level without a counterbalance forklift. Remember that every GPC rack on this page needs a forklift to unload on delivery. Need a layout or a load capacity checked before you commit? Get in touch and we will go through it with you.