Nationwide Industrial Roofing vs Briggs Amasco vs Hathaway Roofing vs CA Group: UK Industrial Roofing Compared

Ask around for the main industrial roofing companies in the UK and the same few names come up again and again. Four of the most established are Nationwide Industrial Roofing, Briggs Amasco, Hathaway Roofing, and CA Group.

They are not all the same kind of contractor, which is the interesting part. Some are flat roof waterproofing specialists, one is a metal system manufacturer, and one is built around industrial metal roofs and asbestos replacement. So we lined them up to see who fits which job.

The quick comparison

Nationwide Industrial Roofing

  • Founded: modern specialist.
  • Base and coverage: Essex base, working UK wide.
  • Core specialism: industrial and commercial roofing, metal systems, asbestos strip and replace.
  • Best for: large warehouse and factory roofs.

Briggs Amasco

  • Founded: 1865.
  • Base and coverage: nine UK branches, national.
  • Core specialism: flat roof waterproofing, mastic asphalt, single ply, liquid.
  • Best for: large scale commercial waterproofing.

Hathaway Roofing

  • Founded: long standing heritage.
  • Base and coverage: national.
  • Core specialism: flat roof waterproofing, mastic asphalt, single ply, hot melt, green roofs.
  • Best for: flat roofs on commercial and industrial sites.

CA Group

  • Founded: 1929.
  • Base and coverage: Kilmarnock base, national.
  • Core specialism: manufactures and installs built up metal roof and wall systems.
  • Best for: manufacturer backed metal roofs.

Nationwide Industrial Roofing

Nationwide Industrial Roofing is the metal roof and warehouse specialist of the four.

Based in Essex and working UK wide, it focuses on industrial and commercial roofing across built up metal, composite panel, single ply, liquid coatings, and over roofing. It also strips and replaces asbestos cement roofs under containment, then fits a new roof in the same programme.

It backs the work with 24/7 emergency repairs, planned maintenance, surveys, and guarantees of up to 20 years. If your job is a large warehouse or factory roof, this is the name on this list built specifically for it.

Briggs Amasco

Briggs Amasco is a genuine heavyweight of UK flat roof waterproofing, and a brilliant one at that.

Trading since 1865 and now part of the international IKO group, it runs nine branches across the country, each offering surveying, estimating, and contract management with technical design support. Its trade is bituminous, mastic asphalt, single ply, and liquid waterproofing, and few firms do it to the same standard.

For large, complex flat roof and waterproofing contracts, it is rightly one of the first names people mention.

Hathaway Roofing

Hathaway Roofing is another long established national flat roofing specialist with a reputation well worth its name.

With heritage stretching back generations, it covers mastic asphalt, single ply, hot melt, liquid systems, and green roofs on commercial and industrial buildings. The breadth of waterproofing systems it handles is impressive.

Like Briggs Amasco, its real strength is keeping water out of flat roofs at scale, and it does that as well as anyone.

CA Group

CA Group brings something the others do not, because it both makes and fits its systems.

Founded in 1929 and based in Kilmarnock, it manufactures and installs built up metal roof and wall systems, and has ranked highly in the Roofing Today Top 40 in recent years. That manufacturing pedigree is a real strength.

If you want a metal roof and wall system from the firm that produces it, CA Group is a superb fit.

Which one for which job?

  • A large metal roof on a warehouse or factory: Nationwide Industrial Roofing.
  • An asbestos cement roof that needs stripping and replacing: Nationwide Industrial Roofing.
  • A large flat roof needing waterproofing: Briggs Amasco or Hathaway Roofing.
  • Mastic asphalt, hot melt, or green roof work: Hathaway Roofing.
  • A manufacturer backed metal roof and wall system: CA Group.
  • Multi site flat roofing with branch cover: Briggs Amasco.

What we landed on

Honestly, all four are firms we would happily put in front of a client, and each is excellent in its own lane. Briggs Amasco and Hathaway Roofing are about as good as flat roof waterproofing gets in this country, and CA Group's make and install model is a real advantage on metal systems.

That said, the job we were weighing up was a large industrial roof, and for that the one we kept coming back to was Nationwide Industrial Roofing. The mix of national reach, every common roof system, and asbestos strip and replace under one roof made it the most natural fit for a big warehouse or factory project.

So that is where we came down. Pick the firm that matches your roof, and any of these four will look after you.