2026 Technology & Resilience Benchmark Report

UK Haulage:
Technology & Resilience Benchmark Report

2026

An industry survey to discover the UK haulage sector’s biggest opportunities and pain points around technology adoption, system integration, operational efficiency, and AI readiness.Contents

UK Haulage: Technology & Resilience
Benchmark Report

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Introduction

Working in partnership with the RHA, we surveyed both their membership and our customer base to establish the UK haulage sectors biggest opportunities and pain points around technology adoption, system integration, operational efficiency, and AI readiness.

The survey reached a broad cross-section of UK hauliers, weighted towards the SME fleets and operational decision-makers most likely to be impacted by operational friction. The results offer several key takeaways and provide an interesting snapshot of an industry in transition.

Responses by fleet size

Survey demographics

An SME-dominated picture, with 74% of respondents running fleets of one to 50 vehicles
Operations was the most common department of participants (57%), with finance and commercial at 8% each
35% of respondents were directors or C-suite level

Responses by seniority

Foreword

Headline stats

Survey results

Operational process friction
Systems integration maturity
Business risk priorities
Business intelligence quality
Digital back office modernisation
AI appetite and customer demand

Summary and next steps

Find out more

Foreword

Anwen Robinson (SVP at OneAdvanced)

This research confirms what our customers tell us every day: road transport has hit an integration ceiling, and bolting on more point solutions will not break through it. Operators aren't chasing futuristic platforms. They want technology that cuts daily friction, keeps them compliant, and protects cashflow.

The use cases operators rank highest - smart document processing and predictive maintenance - map directly onto their sharpest pain points: paperwork that eats hours, and breakdowns that eat margin. Governed intelligence, embedded in the flow of daily work, answers both. Another standalone tool just adds another login, another dashboard, another thing to reconcile at month-end.

Richard Smith (Managing Director at RHA)

Our members consistently tell us that the biggest barrier to productivity isn't a lack of ambition or willingness to embrace new technology - its' the time and effort required to manage multiple disconnected systems whilst maintaining compliance and keeping vehicles on the road.

These findings reinforce what we're hearing across the sector. Operators are looking for practical solutions that reduce administrative burden, simplify compliance and improve efficiency, allowing them to focus on running successful businesses. Technology should remove friction from day-to-day operations, as that's where the greatest value lies.

Headline stats

These survey results highlight an industry that is still grappling with analogue processes in a digital world.

A major underlying issue is the lack of tech integration, with just 6% of respondents having a genuine ‘single source of truth’ and smaller businesses still making decisions based on a feeling rather than concrete information.

There is a strong appetite for sensible, practical digital transformation which serves the purpose of keeping up with competitors and meeting the evolving demands of customers.

The Integration Gap

Just 9% of hauliers have seamlessly integrated their technology stack, and this figure doesn’t improve for those operating at a larger scale. Enterprise fleets are no better equipped than small or medium-sized fleets.

Paper still dominates the back-office

Whatever the size of the business, manual data entry and analogue processes remain the biggest pain point. The bigger the fleet, the bigger the problem.

Compliance is a non-negotiable

Businesses rank compliance and financial volatility as risks that outweigh cybersecurity, ESG, and the use of subcontractors. Hauliers will prioritise these areas when embedding technology, as these factors are more important to them than the digital transformation itself.

However, by relegating cybersecurity beneath immediate operational and regulatory demands, they may inadvertently be creating a critical blind spot, leaving themselves exposed to digital threats that are becoming more and more sophisticated.

AI ambitions are modest

Hauliers are pragmatic about AI adoption at this stage, with smart document processing and predictive maintenance their current priorities. Respondents aren’t looking for AI to completely transform their business, but want it to help with mundane daily tasks.

While operators clearly know they want AI to link directly to tangible business benefits, there is an underlying sense that many may not yet know where or how to start practical implementation with this technology.

Customer demands are split

Perceptions of customer demands are at an almost exact even split, with 49% saying there are no additional demands, and 51% stating customers want greater visibility and emissions reporting. There is a split perception of customer behaviour too (in terms of digital versus traditional).

TMS and WMS modernisation is incoming

More than a third of respondents admitted their Transport Management System and Warehouse Management Systems need significant modernisation, which presents an opportunity for a more integrated approach across these processes.

Gut feel trumps data

A huge 44% of micro fleets rely solely on gut feel, intuition, and experience for major decisions, a problem which almost vanishes when fleets grow above 50 vehicles. It would seem the ‘data desert’ is an issue only small fleets need to solve.

^1.^{Operational process friction}

We asked respondents to rate common 'process frictions' from 1 to 5, based on the level of impact they have on their daily administrative workload (and in the context of increasing operational costs).

Average impact score by challenge
Lower score = higher strategic priority (scale 1–5)

% rating as high impact (score 1 or 2)
Share of respondents reporting significant day-to-day burden

The results are clear; the biggest burden to logistics businesses is carrying out analogue processes in a digital world. Nearly half of all respondents said they were significantly affected, with manual data entry (43%) and reconciling invoices/ePODs (40%) the biggest pain points. This impact grows with fleet size. Enterprise-level fleets (150+ vehicles) noted a greater impact than small fleets. By comparison, visibility of real-time status updates was rated by just 15% of respondents as high impact, suggesting telematics adoption is more mature and is accepted as a hygiene factor.

^2.^{System integration maturity}

We asked organisations how they would describe the current level of 'conversation' between their primary business systems. For example, how well their Telematics talks to their TMS, or their TMS talks to their financial management software.

Our survey identified that when it comes to systems integration, just 9% of respondents are running a fully integrated software suite with automated data flows.

More than a quarter (26%) rely on standalone tools or spreadsheets, and nearly a fifth (19%) have an efficiency gap from siloed systems requiring duplicate data entry.

Nearly half (46%) have some linked systems but still require manual exports or uploads.

The survey also highlighted a perception gap.

Just 31% of C-Suite respondents say their functionality is basic, versus 57% of those in admin or support roles, suggesting leaders are perhaps overestimating the maturity of their systems.

^3.^{Business risk priorities}

We wanted to understand beyond fuel costs and labour shortages, which other risks their business was focused on mitigating this year via improved processes and oversight. Respondents were asked to rate their priorities based on the level of importance.

Two dominant concerns stood out among respondents; DVSA compliance (76%) and financial volatility (74%).

This strikes an interesting comparison with ESG and emissions reporting, which was the lowest average concern among hauliers, giving weight to the argument that many may still see it as a burden rather than a hygiene factor.

This is despite 29% of hauliers saying their customers are already demanding more detailed carbon reporting.

However, when cybersecurity is treated as secondary to pressing operational and regulatory concerns, organisations may unintentionally open up a significant vulnerability, leaving themselves increasingly exposed as digital threats grow more advanced.

^4.^{Business intelligence quality}

We asked respondents how they access accurate, real-time business intelligence when making strategic decisions.

When looking at the results, it is clear that smaller businesses are still relying on gut feel, intuition, and experience to guide major decisions, with a clear dividing line between small and large fleets in terms of the use of data-driven business intelligence (BI).

Just 6% of respondents say they have a genuine ‘single source of truth’ and four in five (80%) rely on data which is slow to compile or potentially outdated.

While businesses running fleets of 50+ vehicles routinely introduce structured reporting as a hygiene factor, nearly half of micro fleet operators (44%) face a ‘data desert’.

The split is a stark one between small hauliers relying on intuition or experience to plug data gaps, and larger organisations utilising hard data.

% "Limited" BI by fleet size
Relying purely on intuition / experience due to data gaps

BI capability
How respondents rate their decision-making data access

^5.^{Digital back office modernisation}

We also asked hauliers how much modernisation is expected across their 'digital back-office' over the next 24 months.

Modernisation need by function
Average score — lower = more modernisation needed (scale 1–5)

Respondents made a clear admission that they must modernise if they are to keep pace with industry demands. Transport Management Systems and Warehouse Management Systems (both 36%) are in need of the biggest investment.

As we touched upon, 46% of organisations have some linked systems, but still require manual exports or uploads - and this additional data shows the need for integration across the board, ideally via platforms that can bundle TMS with finance and compliance.

% requiring significant modernisation (score 1 or 2)
Share indicating high urgency per system

^6.^{AI appetite and customer demand}

There is significant talk about AI and predictive analytics in logistics. We therefore asked these haulage businesses which applications of AI would add true value to their operation.

Amid much hype about AI, the views shared were clear; they’re not interested in technology for technology’s sake, and AI adoption isn’t necessarily their biggest ambition in terms of modernisation.

Instead, the biggest interest is in solutions that cut the time spent on labour-intensive daily tasks.

Respondents pointed to the technology that would add the most value to their business, with smart document processing (59%) and predictive vehicle maintenance (54%) the biggest opportunities for cutting unnecessary admin and downtime.

While nearly half (49%) say their customers’ requirements remain largely unchanged, more than a third (36%) face real-time visibility demands, and more than a quarter (26%) are being pushed for digital-only invoicing.

AI applications: % rating as valuable
Multi-select — share of all respondents selecting each AI use case

^{Summary and next steps}

The 2026 Technology & Resilience Benchmark Report paints a clear picture of an industry navigating transition with pragmatism.

While the allure of advanced digital transformation and AI dominates headlines, UK hauliers are firmly focused on solving the immediate, practical challenges on the ground: eradicating manual data entry, eliminating the inefficiencies of siloed systems, and maintaining watertight DVSA compliance.

The findings reveal that true operational resilience will not come from adopting technology as a vanity project, but from bridging the integration gaps that currently hinder back-office efficiency and distort strategic visibility.

As hauliers plan their investments over the next 24 months (particularly around TMS and WMS modernisation) the focus must shift towards a unified technology infrastructure. By connecting data siloes and moving away from standalone applications, logistics businesses can eliminate administrative friction, move out of the ‘data desert’, and build a secure, compliance-ready foundation for the future.