Pumping Ahead: Key Challenges and Priorities for 2025
What’s keeping pump operators up at night? And what’s driving their investment decisions for the year ahead?
As we step into 2025, industrial pump users across mining, quarrying, construction, and wastewater management are focused on tackling efficiency, reliability, and cost-control challenges.
In December 2024, Atlantic Pumps surveyed pump buyers and operators to uncover their biggest fluid handling obstacles of the past year—and their top priorities for 2025. From abrasive wear and rising maintenance costs to sustainability demands and digital monitoring, this article highlights the trends shaping the pump industry in 2025.
The Past Year’s Most Pressing Challenges
In this end-of-year survey, Atlantic Pumps asked a range of people involved in pump operations and purchasing decisions, including customers and non-clients.
Challenge # 1 – Wear parts and service life
As expected, the ongoing challenge most often quoted was related to wear-life issues when pumping slurries and dirty water containing foreign objects, dirt, and gravel. These are prone to wear out seals, impellers, and even metal pump casings, especially when highly abrasive sand slurry is processed at high volume.
SlurryPro centrifugal pumps are usually fitted with rubber linings for sand and grit-dominated slurries. In contrast, high chrome components are often selected for protecting pump parts from the impact damage of larger solids.
Audex dirty water submersible pumps have been shown to increase asset lifetime and reduce repair interventions by up to eight times that of clean water pumps in sand quarries and similar aggressive applications.
Challenge # 2 – Climate change
2024 started and finished with some particularly wet periods, with well over twice the normal averages in South England during February and September. This was reflected in many survey respondents citing flooding as a major issue for them. Flood water runoff often introduces debris, stones, and suspended grit into drainage sumps and pumping systems, which alongside the additional volume and duration puts significant strain on pumps. Pump failures, insufficient flow rates, and delays in obtaining spare parts are issues that Atlantic Pumps have helped numerous companies overcome during the past year.
Submersible pumps are often used for moving flood water from sump pits, and can be automated to turn on and off at set water levels. Where the risk severity of flooding is high, it may be worth having pumps in pair on a ‘duty-standby’ operation. This allows one to be at rest, or undergo maintenance, while the other pumps. Of course, both can then be turned on during peak emergencies.
Challenge # 3 – Pump spares and repairs
High interest rates, inflation, and general business uncertainty through the second half of 2024 resulted in many companies holding off investments in replacements and upgrades. This inevitably leads to older pumps requiring more frequent interventions and asset managers relying heavily on operational budgets (OPEX) to cover spares, repairs, and hire costs. Finding competent support partners and training site staff in pump operation and routine maintenance was a key challenge for plant and technical engineering managers.
Increasingly, site managers recognise the need for better preventative and pre-emptive maintenance so that pumping systems are always ready for unexpected or extreme weather events.
Other respondents to the survey commented on major issues they had with blockages, which could be down to incorrect pump-type specification, process changes, or the increase in flash-flooding and storms that brought in larger solids, foreign objects, and debris.
Overarching business sentiment
According to the ONS (Office of National Statistics) January report, 62% of businesses nationally were facing suppressed turnover, with concerns over the economic outlook and the rising cost of labour cited as significant challenges. With inflation having cut into employee’s earnings, and the pending increase in National Insurance and the National Minimum wage, business managers and owners are having to think outside the box to find ways to strengthen resilience.
Despite the pressures, some industries are expected to increase revenue during 2025 as the government prioritises the building of new houses, strengthens the move to green and locally produced energy, and on-shoring production of vital goods. Clean energy generation, waste management, sustainable building materials manufacturing, aggregate production, precious metal mining and refining, and high-end lithium battery production will likely see strong, positive growth over the next few years.
A building boom across the UK, from housing to travel infrastructure, will also lift the demand for soil and water decontamination, pollution and flood prevention, and water remediation services, according to IBISWorld.
Companies who offer the highest service with positive environmental impacts, control their operational costs without exposing themselves to undue risk or a hollowing out of their asset value, are poised to perform in 2025-2026.
What are process managers and pump operators’ top priorities for 2025?
Target # 1 – Leaner & Greener
By far the biggest pump priority identified by most respondents was around operating efficiency, reducing operational expenditure (OPEX) and increasing sustainability. Pumps are essential for many operations, from dewatering to production processes, making them responsible for a vast amount of energy use. Or putting it positively, represent an area worth optimising - over and over again.
When studying ways to further reduce energy use, it is good to keep challenging assumptions and the status quo. System changes can cut out waste, such as treating grey water onsite instead of trucking it away, or changing from diesel-powered vacuum truck visits to high-viscosity electric pumps when emptying sludge tanks.
Reducing friction loss in pipework systems through hose material choice, reduction of length and bends, and avoidance of unnecessary connections can enable power savings and help smaller pumps deliver more.
After selecting the best pump type (peristaltic, centrifugal, progressing cavity etc), choosing the most effective motor, opting for green energy, and possibly installing power-setting controls such as a variable frequency drive (VFD) can further reduce energy wastage.
Target # 2 – Uptime Performance
Sudden pump failure can be vastly expensive to deal with, notwithstanding the stress and disruption that’s hard to put a value on. Downtime of just one pump can render much more expensive equipment to sit idle, affecting commercial targets, and customer relationships.
Such run-till-failure events can be reduced – even eliminated – through successful preventive maintenance programs such as condition monitoring and predictive analysis. Replacing wear parts in good time can often save a much more expensive failure down the line, such as motor burnout or water damage to electrical components.
Of course, selecting the right pump for the application is the first step to good performance. A pump that’s great for clear water won’t last long in a heavy-duty or abrasive slurry situation, however well it’s cared for. Understanding the pump’s duty requirement (including associated equipment and pipe system), and the fluid’s properties is important to ensure that the specified pump will perform as desired.
Many sites with older pumps, that still have useful life and are relatively efficient are looking to refurbish and service. Atlantic Pumps site engineers can assess condition, and often advice site engineers, or replace parts onsite while there. Where circumstances or pump state dictates, we can take them into our dedicated pump workshop where our technicians inspect and overhaul them for the client.
Target # 3 – Commissioning new, longer-lasting pumps
Somewhat intertwined with the above two priorities, many respondents indicated their approach to meeting the challenges of 2025 by replacing worn-out or otherwise troublesome pumps with newer models or pump types better suited to the application. This is expected to provide a much-welcomed reduction in operating costs and management disruption, allowing companies to focus on growth and innovation in other areas of their operations.
New technology and innovation over the past couple of years means today’s pump buyers are presented with many options for improving outcomes within their specific processes. Pumps designed for moving thicker sludge, passing larger solid sizes, extra longevity in abrasive fluid processing, and reduced maintenance for difficult-to-access zones, alongside remote condition monitoring and automation are a few examples that Atlantic Pumps is working with clients on over the remainder of 2025.
How Atlantic Pumps is ready to help meet your targets during 2025
- Hydraulic, mechanical, and electrical engineering for challenging fluids and abrasive material transfer
- Rapid supply of pump spare parts to minimise your downtime and cash tied up in parts inventory
- Pump hire – long-term, short-term, trial projects
- Fluid systems efficiency and energy use optimisation
- Pump condition monitoring to reduce expensive surprises and unplanned downtime
- Remote and automated data collection and system control to improve H&S, environmental protection, and staff availability
- Innovation, collaboration, and cross-training to promote best practice across process fluids systems, water, wastewater, and bulk powder handling
Speak to your Atlantic Pumps contact about your goals, challenges, and aspirations in 2025 – and we’ll shift blockages, remove friction, boost resilience, accelerate your flow, and take your fluid handling to new heights in 2025!
Atlantic Pumps is ready to tackle your 2025 big rocks and gritty issues – let's work together to achieve your 2025 goals
