Van racking and security fit-out — what's worth fitting in 2026

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Why this matters more than people think

Watch a working van for an hour and you'll spot the difference between a well-fitted-out van and a chaotic one. The fitted-out van — driver opens the back, knows exactly where everything is, picks up a job in 90 seconds. The chaotic one — driver climbs in, moves three boxes, drops something, takes ten minutes to find what they need. Multiply that by every job, every week.

And it's not just productivity. Loose tools in a van are a serious safety issue. A 4kg SDS hammer sliding around the load bay at 70mph in an emergency stop becomes a missile. The HSE has prosecuted businesses for un-secured load incidents under PUWER and CDM regs.

The four-stage fit-out

If you're fitting out a van from scratch, do it in this order. Each stage is independently useful — you can stop after any of them.

Stage 1 — ply lining (£200-£400 fitted)

Plastic-coated ply on the floor and walls of the load bay. Two reasons: protects the van metalwork from dings (massive resale value impact) and gives you something to screw racking and brackets into without piercing the outer skin.

DIY-able if you're handy with a jigsaw and a tape measure. Templates are downloadable for most vans — Transit Custom, Berlingo, Vivaro, Sprinter. Most ply lining kits are pre-cut, pre-drilled, and just need fitting. £180-£250 for the kit, half a day's work.

Or pay a fitter — Sortimo, Bott, Bri-stor — £350-£500 for a full-bay job. They'll do it in two hours and it'll be perfect.

Stage 2 — racking system (£600-£1,800)

This is the expensive bit and the bit that actually changes how you work. There are three real choices:

• Sortimo SR5 Globelyst — premium, modular, lifetime warranty. £1,500-£2,500 for a full Transit Custom kit. The system to build for if you're staying in the trade for 10+ years.
• Bott VarioLine — slightly cheaper, German engineering, excellent shelving and L-Boxx integration. £1,200-£2,000 for the same scope.
• Van Guard / System Edstrom budget kits — £600-£1,000 for a basic working setup. Not lifetime, but perfectly fine for 5-7 years' service.

The thing to NOT cut corners on is the rear loading. Get a proper drawer system, not just shelves with loose boxes. Drawers stop everything sliding when you open the back doors at the top of a hill.

Stage 3 — security upgrades (£500-£900 fitted)

We covered this in detail in our tool theft piece. The headline:

• Heosafe or Slamlock deadlocks — front + back doors, ~£600 fitted
• Hook locks on the rear (where most break-ins occur)
• Replacement loadspace lock — £100-£150 for a Locks 4 Vans setup
• Window film on rear cargo windows if your van has them — £80-£120, makes smash-and-grab pointless

Stage 4 — interior lighting and power (£100-£300)

The bit that makes evening jobs possible. Fit two LED strip lights wired to the load-bay door switch, so they come on automatically when you open the back. £30 for a decent set, an hour to wire. Tap into the existing courtesy light circuit so it doesn't drain the main battery.

If you do mobile-power work — caravan installs, boat fit-outs — fit a leisure battery and a 1000W pure sine wave inverter. £200-£300, gives you 230V mains in the back of the van for the small power tools that aren't on your cordless platform.

Three van-specific notes

Ford Transit (and Custom)

The XLT and trend-line variants have rear cargo locks that are notoriously easy to defeat. Replacement locks are job one before any racking spend.

The Custom's curved interior wall makes ply lining slightly fiddly — buy the proper Custom-specific kit, not generic.

Mercedes Sprinter

Sprinter's tall load bay (especially MWB high-roof) is where racking really pays — you can fit two-tier shelving and still have headroom to stand upright. Use it.

Sprinter rear doors have a known weakness on the lower 'peel-and-steal' attack — fit hook locks before deadlocks if budget is tight.

Citroen Berlingo / Peugeot Partner

Compact van — racking has to be planned carefully. Sortimo and Bott both do Berlingo-specific kits that work with the asymmetric door layout. Don't try to retrofit a Transit kit; the dimensions don't quite work.

For a Berlingo, see also our Berlingo sat-nav guide.

What we'd skip

Don't fit a roof rack unless you actually carry ladders or long pipes daily. Roof racks add 5-8% to your fuel costs from the drag. Most trades think they need one and end up using it twice a year.

Don't buy the £200 'tool box for the back of the van' on Amazon that promises to be 'lockable, weatherproof, theft-proof'. None of them are theft-proof. They're a five-second job with bolt cutters. Fit proper racking with proper locks instead.

The total budget

If you're doing it properly, end-to-end:

• Ply lining: £300
• Mid-tier racking (Bott or System Edstrom): £1,200
• Security upgrades: £700
• Interior lights and basic power: £150

Round figure: £2,500. That's the spend on a proper professional fit-out for a working trade van that lasts 8-10 years. Spread across that lifetime, it's £250-£300 a year. About what you'd spend on van washes.

The honest summary

If you're self-employed, your van is your office. Imagine running an office where you can't find anything, half your kit gets nicked once a year, and you can't see what you're doing in the dark. That's most working trade vans. A proper fit-out fixes it.

Start with ply lining. Add proper deadlocks before anything else. Then build the racking around what you actually carry. The whole thing pays back in tool longevity, productivity, and security in 18 months — every time.