Lift and Shift Manchester

Lift and shift in Manchester and across Greater Manchester

We provide lift and shift in Manchester for manufacturers, food producers, office towers, labs and data centres across Greater Manchester. It covers heavy or awkward items where a crane cannot reach or cannot do the final placing: switchgear into a switchroom, a chiller out of a basement plant room, a generator into its bay, a machine repositioned inside a factory, or laboratory equipment moved upstairs. The older centre is full of converted mills, where floors are checked before anything heavy goes in.

We work in Manchester and Salford, on Trafford Park, in Stretford, Sale, Eccles and Wythenshawe, and further out in Stockport, Bolton, Bury, Oldham and Rochdale. With a few photos we can price most jobs the same working day from a desktop survey.

What lift and shift covers

An item is raised, lowered, turned or moved along a route and set down on its base, using gantries, skates, rollers, jacks and toe jacks. Where a crane outside brings the unit to a door or a roof, our crew takes it the rest of the way.

What we lift and shift in Manchester

Item	Where it usually is	How it moves
Transformers and switchgear	Basement switchrooms under city-centre towers, and substations on the estates	Jacked onto skates, walked to the plinth and lowered level
Chillers, boilers and air handling units	Plant rooms in hotels, offices and residential towers	Gantry over a hatch or crane to the roof, then rollers to the base
Presses and production machinery	Factory units in Openshaw and Gorton	Toe jacks under the bed, then skates to the new bay
Generators and UPS	Service yards, energy centres and data halls	Rolled in on skates, lined up over the mounts and levelled
Process tanks and skids	Production halls at food and drink sites	Gantried clear and walked into the line on skates
Laboratory equipment and display cabinets	Research buildings, galleries and shops in the centre	Low-headroom gantry and padded rollers, moved at walking pace

Give us the weight, size and both positions and we will set out a method. Our lift and shift service page has the full picture.

Get In Touch

Please leave a few details and a member of our lift and shift team will be in touch to discuss your requirements in more detail.

Where we work in and around Manchester

Our Manchester work comes from these kinds of building.

Units on Trafford Park

More of our Manchester work comes from Trafford Park and the Ship Canal estates than anywhere else. Inside the units it might be a press moved for a new line, or a compressor lifted onto a mezzanine. See our industrial sector page.

Towers and offices in the centre

Tall residential and office blocks keep plant on the roof and in the basement, reached by a crane from the street and skates along a service corridor. See our HVAC sector page.

Salford Quays

Quayside offices and apartments stay occupied while plant is changed, and with few approach roads the item goes straight from lorry to building.

Laboratories and clinics

Teaching and healthcare buildings need laboratory and medical equipment moved between rooms while staff carry on, on routes agreed with the estates team. See our healthcare and pharma and education pages.

Food and drink plants

Food producers change tanks and process skids during planned shutdowns, and our kit is cleaned before it enters the production area. See our food and beverages page.

Data halls and switchrooms

Generators and UPS go into data halls over raised floors, and switchgear into telecoms and utility switchrooms, inside fixed outage windows. See our data centre infrastructure and telecoms pages.

Access and planning for a lift and shift in Manchester

Points we check on most Manchester jobs:

Mill and warehouse floors. Many buildings in Ancoats, the Northern Quarter and Castlefield are converted Victorian mills and warehouses with timber or jack-arch floors on cast-iron columns. We find out how each floor was built before a heavy item crosses it.
What the slab will carry. Skates put the whole weight through a few small points, so we check loadings along the route, including any basement beneath, and lay plates or mats where needed.
Headroom and the route. We measure clearance with the item on the equipment, then every door, soffit and turn between the lorry and the base.
Buildings that stay open. Offices and apartment blocks stay in use, so the move is fitted around their busy hours.
Loading and road space. Tram stops and bus gates limit where a lorry can stand in the centre. Where a job needs part of a road, we arrange the traffic management with Manchester City Council, Salford City Council or Trafford Council.

Getting it where it needs to go

A job can run into a building, out of one, or both in one visit, with the old chiller leaving the way the new one comes in. Some never go indoors: a transformer shifted across a yard onto a new plinth, or a tank moved between two buildings on one site.

Older conversions bring narrow stairs and old goods hoists, towers bring basement ramps and small goods lifts, units on the estates bring mezzanines and level changes, and data halls add raised floors. Gantries, jacks, rollers and skates get past most of it, helped by a crane where needed. When nothing fits, a door frame is stripped back and made good, or the item goes through in sections.

Postcodes and areas we cover

We cover every M postcode and the Greater Manchester districts around it:

Manchester: city centre, Ancoats, Castlefield, Cheetham Hill, Openshaw, Gorton, Didsbury and Wythenshawe
Salford: Salford Quays, Eccles, Swinton, Worsley and Irlam
Trafford: Trafford Park, Old Trafford, Stretford, Urmston, Sale and Altrincham
Wider area: Stockport, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Wigan and Ashton-under-Lyne

We also lift and shift right across the UK.

Why Manchester firms choose Synergy Lifting for lift and shift

Nights and Sundays when you need them. Central Manchester and Salford Quays moves often go in out of hours, and we crew them for that.
Crane and crew under one contract. When a crane sets the item at the door, the move to its base sits under the same plan.
Delicate items too. Lab cabinets and display cases are jacked slowly with padding at every contact point.
Qualified and accredited. CPCS and NPORS operators, lifts planned to BS 7121, equipment inspected under LOLER and PUWER, SSIP approved, Constructionline Gold Member, certified to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, and members of the Construction Plant-hire Association.

More than lift and shift

Manchester jobs often need other work too, so we also offer:

How a lift and shift works

Tell us the weight and dimensions, where the item sits now and where it is going, with photos of the route.
We price it from a desktop survey the same working day, or visit first if the route is tight or the floors unknown.
You get a method statement, risk assessment and lift plan, with floor loadings checked.
On site the crew lifts the item, moves it and places it in position.
We set it down on its base, level it and hand it over for your engineers to connect.

Common questions

Can you get heavy plant onto an upper floor of a converted mill?

Yes, once we know how the floors were built. Some mills in Ancoats and the Northern Quarter still have taking-in doors on the upper levels, so a crane lands the item at the opening and we skate it in across spreader plates.

Can you put a transformer into a basement switchroom under a city-centre tower?

Yes. It goes down through a hatch on a gantry or down the loading ramp, then jacks and skates take it to the plinth during the building’s booked shutdown.

How much headroom do you need?

Less than most people expect, but it decides the method. What counts is the gap between the top of the item and the lowest obstruction on the route once the item is on the equipment. Where it is tight we use a low-headroom gantry or jacks and lift in smaller steps.

Will you damage our floor?

Not if the route is prepared, and that preparation is part of the price. We spread the load with mats or tracks where the slab needs it, protect finished surfaces, and agree beforehand what gets covered and what gets made good.

Get a quote for lift and shift in Manchester

Phone: 0161 568 8241
Email: manchester@synergy-lifting.co.uk

Send us the weight, the dimensions and photos of the route for a price.

We also provide lift and shift in Stockport, Warrington, Wigan and Preston. See all the lift and shift locations.