How to choose CCTV cameras for a construction site
Published 7 September 2026
Temporary CCTV cameras are how most UK construction sites get overnight cover before the building has power. This is how to choose between a tower, a fixed camera and a padlock — without buying the wrong kit.
Start with the job the cameras have to do
Construction site crime is mostly opportunistic and mostly after hours: plant and tool theft, diesel, copper and lead, trespass, arson, fly-tipping on a cleared plot. Health-and-safety cameras that watch a hoist during the day are a different product. If the brief is “stop a telehandler leaving the gate on a Sunday”, you need height, night performance, recording you can hand an insurer, and something thieves can see from the road.
Write down three things before you speak to a supplier: where the plant parks, where vehicles enter, and whether the site has mains yet. Those three answers decide 90% of the specification.
Fixed cameras vs a CCTV tower
Fixed, cabled CCTV is cheaper per camera once the building exists — power, a network, and a wall to mount on. On a live build those things arrive late, and the high-risk period is often week one through first fix, when there is nothing to screw a dome to.
A construction site CCTV camera tower is a mast, four (or so) cameras, solar or battery, and 4G in one trailer. It is the system that can be live in 48 hours with no groundworks. When the compound moves, the cameras move. When the job finishes, they leave. That is why the pages ranking for this search are almost all rapid-deployment towers, not a box of indoor domes.
Power: solar, battery or a generator left on
If the site has a stable mains feed, a mains-backed tower is simple. If it does not — most plots before first fix, demolition sites, rural phases — solar plus battery is the honest default. Leaving a diesel generator on overnight to power cameras is noisy, expensive, and a theft target in its own right.
Ask the supplier what happens in a week of Hampshire drizzle in January. A tower specified for summer sun only will go dark when you most need it. Sentryva’s Vigil 700 and 1000 are built for that: solar with battery autonomy, mains-backed where you have it.
Monitoring: recording is not the same as watching
Cameras that only record are useful after a theft. Cameras that flag a person at the gate at 02:14, and can speak to them, are useful during one. The national players all lead with 24/7 monitoring for a reason: that is what construction buyers type into Google after a weekend loss.
You do not always need a full ARC on a quiet plot. You do need to know whether “monitored” means a person seeing verified events, or an email you will read on Monday. Sentryva includes self-managed alerts; professional 24/7 monitoring is an add-on, priced separately, so you are not paying for a control room you do not want.
What insurers and principal contractors actually ask for
The loss-adjuster question is: “what was watching the compound?” A motion siren with no camera fails that test. So does a single camera pointed at the office. Specify recorded CCTV covering the plant park and the vehicle gate, retained long enough to pull after a Bank Holiday weekend, with a visible deterrent on the skyline. We cover why that matters in construction plant theft and CCTV towers.
A short decision list
- No mains, compound will move, overnight plant on site → solar CCTV tower with multiple cameras (Vigil 700 / 1000). If the hire runs into winter, read whether a solar tower still records through a Hampshire winter.
- Small vacant plot or a single gate, deterrent more than evidence → compact platform (Vigil 600).
- Building already powered and the site is finished → consider fixed CCTV; a tower is overkill once the job is a building.
- Need a person to challenge or escort → tower plus guarding, not one or the other. See tower hire vs manned guarding.
Hampshire and the South, not a national call centre
The top results for this search are national brands. Sentryva is the same camera job, specified for sites we can actually stand on: Portsmouth, Southampton, Winchester, the M27 corridor and the rest of the South of England. Call 02394 331 999 or send the plot address — we will tell you which cameras, not a 40-page range brochure.
Need cameras on a live build?
Site address and hire window — written quote, live in 48 hours, no minimum weeks.