All in the Family

A spotlight on one of the U.K.’s largest independent lift companies

photo courtesy of Sheridan Lifts

Sheridan Lifts is one of the U.K.’s largest independent lift companies, operating for more than 40 years to provide a comprehensive range of products and services including the design, sale and installation of new lifts, the maintenance of existing lifts and service and repair for all types of passenger and service lifts. With a solid reputation for exceptional quality and service, the company works in partnership with clients to understand their needs and provide bespoke solutions for all of their lift requirements.

Founded in 1979 by Stan Sheridan, the family-run business remains true to its core principles of outstanding product care, knowledge and implementation, aligned with first-class customer service. Stan was the father of the firm’s current managing director, Tony Sheridan. Tony worked for Stan up until Stan passed away in 1994. There are now three generations of the Sheridan family involved in the business, with a total of nine family members working across different departments and in different roles from managing director to apprentice lift engineer.

There are now three generations of the Sheridan family involved in the business, with a total of nine family members working across different departments and in different roles from managing director to apprentice lift engineer.

Recent Growth and Expansion

Sheridan Lifts has installed more than 1,000 units over the past four years and maintains more than 5,000 units across the U.K. The company’s turnover has doubled from £8 million in 2018, to £16 million in 2022. The team have further growth plans for the next financial year and are expected to turn over £20m by the end of 2023, as they continue to make strides in the engineering and construction industries.

Sheridan Lifts now operates nationwide and is headquartered in Manchester in North West England, where they opened their new offices in 2011. It was in this year they expanded their services outside of the North West, and in 2013, they began selling new lifts, which was a key moment for the business. They also now have regional offices in both Watford, near London, and Cannock in the West Midlands. They’re also currently continuing their plans to expand to other areas in the U.K., which will be revealed later this year.

Daniel Sheridan, Operations director, said: 

“We opened our Watford office because we were selling more and more new lifts in London and gaining more contracts. We had built our own portfolio of around 250 lifts and started maintaining them. Just as we opened our new office, a lockdown hit in the U.K., and three weeks later everything was shut. However, as we’re classed as key workers, it didn’t affect us much. We now have more than 700 units to maintain across London and the South of England. The pandemic didn’t really affect us because we were reactive. We were operating in care homes and hospitals. On the new lift installation side of things, construction was classed as essential work, so the contracts didn’t stop, and companies were still putting in orders for new lifts. If anything, we became busier!” 

The company has also seen an increase in staff with a 20% increase in the last year. Sheridan has 125 staff members working across service, maintenance, lift installations and modernisations, and in the sales, project, administration and account management departments. Out of this number, 25 employees are based in Watford, with 10 in the Midlands and 90 in the North West. By the end of 2023, the company aims to have hired 25 more staff. They currently have 60 engineers, all of whom take part in monthly in-house training to keep up-to-date with standards and developments. 

The company’s top selling product is new lifts. Sheridan Lifts installs an average of 250 units a year, which earns the business around £10m per year now. The main types of lifts installed are passenger, passenger goods, dumbwaiters and platform lifts. Sheridan Lifts also installs scenic lifts, glass lifts, car lifts, energy-saving lifts, fire and evacuation lifts and high-speed elevators. Daniel said: 

“Word of mouth has been key for us, because we take the time to offer exceptional customer service, we’ve really built up our portfolio and reputation within various industries like healthcare and education by word-of-mouth and recommendations.”

Sheridan Lifts works across the following industries: retail, commercial, educational, food catering, healthcare, industrial and residential. Typical clients are hospitals, large local authorities, housing associations, retail chains and outlets, food production companies (such as Kellogg’s GB) and football stadiums. Daniel said: 

“With our headquarters being based within the heart of Manchester, we are proud to have clients including Manchester City Council, One Manchester Housing, Stockport Homes, Rochdale Borough Council and Moss Care St. Vincent Housing. Each one of these clients requires evidence of how we will be assisting the local communities by ways of social value. This is tracked in house with our account management team on a monthly basis and ensures Sheridan as a family-run business is giving back to those less fortunate.”

Recent activities carried out for local councils that have been a benefit for social value include:

• Resident raffles for cash prizes due to the current cost of living crisis
• Assistance with food banks
• Paying for a defibrillator for the local community in Failsworth, Manchester  
• Christmas gifts for local youth zones for less fortunate families 
• Sponsoring local football teams and holding a charity football match for Rainbows Cancer Research, which raised more than £5k
• Offering services to Bolton hospice free of charge
• A summer fair every year for all employees in the business to bring their families 

In looking at the company’s leadership team, Daniel acknowledged that the group is young but strong: 

“In terms of the directors, six of us are all under 35. We’re a young tribe in business with plenty of ambition. All the directors have started here straight from leaving school and have around 15 years’ experience. It’s important to have a strong foundation in business right from the top.”

He said that the challenge for Sheridan Lifts in all things is to not become complacent and “keeping up with the speed that everything changes.” He said the challenge for the industry is for companies to stay true to their ethos and values. For Sheridan Lifts, the focus on customer service has been key. “It’s all well and good gaining contracts, but you’ve got to make sure you’re not losing them,” Daniel said. “We’ve got the same amount of retained clients as we do new customers.”

In looking to the future, Daniel said the plan is to open the next planned regional offices, details of which will be revealed soon. The company attended LIFTEX 2022 and hopes to attend more events in the coming years. He continued: 

“We’ve already achieved so much, but I believe we can go even bigger and better. I couldn’t be more proud of the business and our team as it stands today. To know we’ve carried on my grandfather’s work so successfully is extremely rewarding for all of us, and we hope Sheridan Lifts will pass down through many more generations of our family to come.”

“To know we’ve carried on my grandfather’s work so successfully is extremely rewarding for all of us, and we hope Sheridan Lifts will pass down through many more generations of our family to come.” 

– Daniel Sheridan, Operations director

Notable Projects and Customers

Birmingham Commonwealth Games Multi-Lift Project

The 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham was one of the most highly anticipated events in the city in recent years. Millions of pounds worth of investment were poured into the city to get ready for more than 5,000 Commonwealth athletes from 72 nations. The team at Sheridan Lifts was delighted to be a part of this project and monumental event, when construction partner Vinci Construction approached Sheridan Lifts with an enquiry about lifts for the Athlete’s Village. This project was a Sector 2-based project (a little more complex than usual), so it needed additional time, care and consideration from the team.

The original specification of this project required the Sheridan team to procure and install 11 lifts across six residential buildings to allow safe and comfortable access for athletes living and working in Birmingham throughout the games. These blocks ranged from five to 17 floors, and each block needed lifts to have vertical-transportation solutions tailored to the needs of the building and its occupants.

A total of 11 lifts was installed, with each block (except block D) requiring two lifts. There was a mixture of eight to 13-person lifts required, including three firefighting lifts in the taller buildings. The initial project timescale ran from May 2019 to early 2022 when the lifts were installed in the accommodation blocks. While this may seem like a long period of time, this is standard for a project of this magnitude. More details may be found at Birmingham Commonwealth Games Multi-Lift Project.

END Clothing

END Clothing is one of the U.K.’s leading retailers for luxury fashion and streetwear, and Sheridan Lifts was tasked with the design and build of a bespoke lift in the heart of their flagship store in Manchester City Centre. 

The store houses 14,000 ft² of retail space and boasts two floors of luxury menswear (including END’s largest footwear offering to date) housed under triple-height ceilings with a luxurious palette of marble, concrete, stainless steel, glass, mirrors and maple wood throughout. After securing the contract in May 2022 with a deadline of September 2022, Sheridan Lifts got to work designing a bespoke lift that met the practical and accessibility needs of the new END space, while also keeping in line with their high-end aesthetic. A full panoramic scenic lift was installed within its own fully glazed self-supporting structure and a direct-acting borehole hydraulic ram mechanism.

As the lift was completely bespoke, engineers were starting from scratch and required products and parts from more than 20 different manufacturers. Design and installation teams had to source and curate these different parts, ensuring their compatibility before combining them in the lift design and installation processes. In line with the design of the store, the entire lift and lift container were made of glass, which means that every element of the lift is customer-facing, and every single part of the lift car, lifting mechanisms, safety features and lift electronics — right down to the nuts and bolts — had to be flawless. More details may be found at END Clothing Case Study.

Caernarfon Castle

Caernarfon Castle, a grade I listed building, is one of the most iconic buildings in North Wales and has a storied history spanning more than 700 years. Originally built as a fortress during the wars of the Welsh princes, it took on a role as one of the homes of Edward I and established Caernarfon as a key location and administrative centre of North Wales for hundreds of years.

Sheridan Lifts was approached to help carry out a new project surrounding the King’s Tower turret. To improve accessibility to the viewing deck at the top of the King’s Tower and ensure that this historic site is open and available to
all, a lift was required. The lift company was tasked with designing and installing safe vertical access to the viewing gallery in the King’s Tower turret. For a project like this in a historical building, a bespoke, frameless glass lift was the perfect choice. It had to be assembled fully off-site and then installed on-site.

By using a glass lift cabin, the view from the lift is completely unobstructed and offers beautiful panoramic views of the castle, castle walls and surrounding areas. On this lift, the doors were also fixed at the bottom of the lift, rather than at the top, to reduce any impediment to the view for users. 

Sheridan Lifts procured the parts and equipment from the U.K. to reduce the carbon footprint of the lift project overall and to ensure the quality of all of the parts used. More details may be found at Caernarfon Castle Bespoke Lift Project.