Hiring vs Buying Mobile CCTV: What UK Sites Should Weigh Up (2026)

Mobile CCTV is sold two ways in the UK: hire a tower by the week, or buy your own camera and own it outright. Both are right answers — for different sites. This guide covers the break-even maths and the questions that decide it. Last updated: July 2026. The headline numbers A hired CCTV tower typically runs £150–£350 per week depending on spec, monitoring and contract length. A solar or 4G rapid-deploy camera bought outright lands between £1,500 and £5,000 depending on capability. Divide one by the other and the pattern is obvious: hire costs overtake purchase somewhere between four and nine months on most sites. When hiring makes sense Short, fixed-term projects — a twelve-week groundworks phase, an event, a seasonal compound. One-off peaks — extra cover during a high-risk period without capital sign-off. Fully managed service — monitoring, maintenance and response bundled in, one invoice, no ownership admin. When buying wins Anything past six months — most construction programmes, farms, yards, storage sites and car parks are multi-year. Ownership pays for itself inside the first year and then costs almost nothing. Multi-site operators — owned cameras redeploy from site to site with no re-hire negotiation; the second deployment is free. Control of your own footage — no per-clip charges, no third-party retention policies, direct integration with your own monitoring or Fortix AI analytics. The questions that decide it How long will the site actually need cover — the contract term, or the realistic programme? Will the camera have a second life on another site afterwards? Is monitoring included in the hire price, and what does the equivalent self-monitored setup cost? Who pays when a hired tower is vandalised or stolen? (Read the excess clause — it is often close to the value of a purchased camera.) The middle route Many of our customers start with one purchased rapid-deploy camera alongside an existing hire contract, prove the running costs, then replace hires as they expire. It converts a weekly operating expense into an asset without a single big decision. Want the numbers for your site? Tell us the location, power situation and how long you need cover, and we will price ownership against your current hire quote. Browse rapid-deploy cameras, or talk to our team.