Office Containers vs Portable Office Cabins
Both give you a working office you own and can move. A converted office container is a steel shipping container fitted out with doors, windows, power and lighting. A portable office cabin is a purpose-built modular office. The choice usually comes down to how exposed the site is and how much you care about the internal layout.
Security
The container wins outright. It is a steel box by construction, so there is no weak panel to go through, and with a personnel door and shuttered window it is about as secure as a site building gets. A steel-clad anti-vandal cabin closes most of that gap, but a container starts there.
Layout and light
The cabin wins. Purpose-built offices come with more glazing, better proportions for desks and meetings, and a shape that was designed for people to work in. Containers are long and relatively narrow, and while windows and partitions can be added, you are working within a shipping container's dimensions. For a sales suite or a client-facing office, the cabin looks and feels the part.
Comfort
Both are fitted with heaters — new heaters in most cases — and both are lit and powered. In practice the cabin is the more comfortable building to sit in all day and the container is the tougher one to leave standing empty.
Moving them
Both are lifted and set into position by our own HIAB fleet. Containers handle repeated moves and rough handling particularly well, which is worth something if the unit will follow the work around.
Cost
The two overlap more than people expect, and the deciding factor is usually size and specification rather than type. Prices exclude VAT, and delivery is quoted separately by postcode and access — it is never free, and a straight answer on that up front is more useful than a headline price.
So which one
Exposed site, unattended overnight, storage as well as desks: office container. Client visits, more than a couple of people working full days, a layout that needs to be right: office cabin. A site that needs both often ends up with one of each, linked or sited side by side.
Have a look at converted containers alongside the portable office range. Anything listed can be adapted before it goes out — partitions moved, a kitchen or washroom added, different doors and windows, your choice of colour.
