Leading manufacturer of construction equipment, SANY UK, expands with new facilities, recruitment and sustainable products
Beginning as a welding fabrication business in China, the SANY Group (SANY) has grown exponentially since 1989. Now a $20 billion business with 60,000 employees worldwide, SANY produces a full range of construction equipment including one-tonne to 100-tonne excavators, wheel loaders, cranes and port machinery. The group has become the global leader in excavators, cranes and piling rigs, alongside its sister company Putzmeister, producing over 100,000 excavators in 2020. Going from strength to strength, SANY has also started a renewable energy business which manufactures items such as wind turbines and solar panels. More recently, it has opened an innovative battery factory to produce lithium-ion batteries for its own machinery.
“SANY’s USP is essentially our high-quality manufacturing and premium quality products,” explains Leigh Harris, SANY UK’s Business Development Director. “Therefore, we have tried to tie that in with the best battery technology available on the market. The batteries we put in our machines are incredibly stable, robust and have a long lifespan. Lithium-ion phosphate is the highest quality battery technology you can buy, but without cobalt, which from an environmental standpoint, is hugely important. When it comes to mining raw materials, mining cobalt is terribly bad for the environment, and we’ve designed a battery that has no cobalt.
“From a customer’s perspective, the excavators can charge very quickly too. Similarly to a car charging port, they can charge in 60 to 90 minutes and last a full working day, like a diesel machine. One example is a key SANY customer who has a 20-tonne electric excavator onsite and, in nine months, they managed 1700 hours of work with it while saving over 70 tonnes of carbon emissions in the process. This is largely due to the quality of the machine and the battery. SANY is totally focused on providing premium quality products to our customers – even our strap line is ‘quality changes the world.’ We’ve established ourselves as a main brand supplier of excavators and we’re dealing with many blue-chip companies in the UK rental sector, offering five years warranty as standard on nearly all machines, which have been designed with excellent fuel efficiency and reliability in mind.”
Although SANY’s core product is excavators, it has also started developing road machinery, including tandem rollers and soil compactors. “We have a full range of diesel and electric road machinery now,” Leigh reveals. “We’ll be launching our electric road trucks for use on motorways in 2027, which is exciting. Alongside our machinery, we have a UK parts centre, a nationwide network of dealers who provide parts and servicing to all our customers, telematics on every machine so our customers have a fleet solution, and we also offer finance packages, so we basically have all bases covered.”
Award-winning employer
SANY is a world leader for sustainable products such as electric excavators, wind farms and solar panels, which the company has also started fitting on its own factories. The group also strives to ensure its supply chain complies with local regulations and aligns with high company standards. Being a publicly listed company on the Shanghai and Hong Kong Stock Exchange, SANY is a privately-owned company, so is very different from a lot of state-owned companies in China. “As a public-listed company, we need to maintain very strong credentials on ESG and we must comply with the various rules and regulations around the world,” continues Leigh. “We take it very seriously. Additionally, out of 55,000,000 companies, SANY has been recognised by Forbes magazine as one of the Top 10 Most Innovative companies in China. Plus, we’re listed in the Top 10 Best Employers, which is amazing and we’re very proud of that. Here at SANY UK we have a great team of over 70 people now, with around 200-to-300 more in our SANY dealer network, plus we get great support from our headquarters in China. They all deserve a huge amount of thanks for their hard work.”
Commitment to its employees and green initiatives plays a big part in SANY’s success, as does its drive for strategic growth across the UK and Ireland. This focuses heavily on providing critical service support to UK customers, as Leigh highlights: “Many of our customers are rental companies, so they instantly start losing money if a machine isn’t working and it’s our goal to help them as quickly as possible. In early 2026, we’re opening a new warehouse in Sittingbourne, Kent, which will be our second warehouse and is four times the size of our current depot in Maidstone. Not only will the Sittingbourne site include a workshop and yard storage, but it’s going to be the new SANY headquarters for the UK as well, replacing our current headquarters near Glasgow.”
Prioritising people
With brand new facilities on the horizon, 2026 is set to be a pivotal year for SANY UK, as it concentrates on reaching a wider audience and gaining more clients. “We’re preparing for growth with the launch of more products and the new customers we’re looking to bring on board,” Leigh tells us. “We think there’ll be great expansion in electric machines for projects like the Lower Thames Crossing, which will take a lot of investment and planning. Furthermore, we just sold our first 80-tonne excavator in the UK, and we can see big opportunities for our large range of machinery. Employee-wise, we’re aiming to create more customer care roles and increase our numbers to 85 in 2026, so we’ll also be focusing on recruitment and training.”
Having been established in the UK for ten years, SANY has a strong network of clients within the construction industry and its focus over the next five years is to continue building those partnerships. “We’ve become known as a premium quality supplier with a great range of products and a good team of people,” concludes Leigh. “We really want to keep supporting our staff and our customers, as that will naturally allow growth within the business – ultimately, we want to be seen as a leader within the sector. If you look after your people, then hopefully the business will look after itself.”