How Many EV Chargers Does Your Workplace Need in 2026?

Most workplaces need fewer chargers than they first assume. A car parked for the working day gives a 7kW socket roughly eight hours to work with — enough to deliver around 50kWh, most of a typical 60kWh battery, and to replenish an average commute in under an hour. That maths means a 100-person office with around 20 EV-driving staff is usually well served by 4–6 sockets and a rotation policy. The number that deserves more of your attention is how many bays you run ducting to, because groundworks are the expensive part of the job: a socket added later into an existing duct is an electrician’s visit, not a civil-engineering project.

Start with demand, not a ratio

There’s no official UK ratio of chargers to EV drivers — the 1:3 to 1:5 rules of thumb you may have seen are vendor shorthand, not standards. The honest method is arithmetic: count the EVs in your car park today, ask staff what’s on order, and work out how much energy those cars actually need each day.

Then build in growth. Battery-electric cars took 30% of UK new-car registrations in June 2026 and 25% across the first half of the year (SMMT data), against a ZEV-mandate target of 33% for 2026 — up from a 23.4% share across 2025. With over 2.1 million fully electric cars already on UK roads, whatever your staff EV share is today, it will be higher next year. A sensible rule: size sockets for today plus about twelve months, and size ducting and supply capacity for a three-to-five-year horizon.

Dwell time makes 7kW the workhorse

The average English commute is about 9 miles each way (DfT National Travel Survey 2024) — an 18-mile round trip that costs a typical EV roughly 5–6kWh. A 7kW chargepoint adds around 25–30 miles of range per hour, so that commute is replenished in under an hour, and even a near-empty 60kWh battery needs only around nine hours at 7kW once charging losses are counted — close to full by home time.

Faster hardware rarely helps staff parking. 22kW units only deliver their full rate to cars with three-phase onboard AC chargers, and rapid DC units belong with short-dwell users — visiting clients, fleet vans between jobs — not cars that sit all day. Our charger comparisons cover the hardware side.

The real capacity multiplier is a sharing policy: bay booking through your charging software, half-day swap rules, or simple move-when-charged etiquette. A well-run rotation lets one socket serve several regular EV commuters and can halve the number of sockets you need.

A worked example: the 100-staff office

Say 20 of your 100 staff drive EVs — roughly tracking where new-car share sits in 2026:

• Daily energy need: 20 cars × ~5–6kWh ≈ 110kWh per day (less in practice, since not everyone is in every day and most arrive part-charged)
• One 7kW socket over an 8-hour day delivers roughly 50kWh
• So 4–6 sockets with a rotation policy covers demand comfortably, with headroom

While the trench is open, though, duct for far more — ducting 20 bays here mirrors the one-in-five logic building regulations already apply to new sites.

One caution on visitor bays: chargepoints reserved for employees, contractors and workplace visitors sit outside the Public Charge Point Regulations 2023, but open them to the general public and they fall in scope — including contactless payment on new chargepoints of 8kW and above. Decide who your chargers are for before you specify them.

The golden rule: duct for more than you install

Building regulations codified this principle: since June 2022, Approved Document S has required new non-residential buildings in England with more than 10 parking spaces to have at least one chargepoint plus cable routes for one in five spaces. The reasoning holds for existing sites too — trenching and supply work are priced per dig, not per socket — which is why a phased rollout is the sane default. Install what this year’s demand justifies, duct the rest, and add sockets as staff EV share climbs. The installer you choose will assess your incoming supply and distribution board as part of the quote, and dynamic load management can often stretch an existing supply across more sockets before you pay for a three-phase upgrade.

Costs, the grant and phasing

Published installer cost guides give a reasonable planning envelope — your own quote depends entirely on the site (all figures last checked July 2026):

Budget too for modest ongoing per-socket running costs — connectivity, software and maintenance — which your installer or software provider should itemise.

The Workplace Charging Scheme takes up to £500 per socket off (75% of costs up to that cap, including VAT) for installations completed on or after 1 April 2026, for up to 40 sockets across all your sites. It’s voucher-based: your business applies online through GOV.UK, receives a voucher valid for 180 days, and an OZEV-authorised installer redeems it — the full claim process is worth understanding when you compare quotes. The scheme has been extended for a final year, closing 31 March 2027, which makes the deadline a genuine planning input; the 40-socket cap is cumulative, so you can return for further vouchers as you phase in sockets. Our grants hub has the full picture, including the separate rate of up to £2,000 per socket for state-funded schools and colleges.

When you’re ready to size the job properly, find an installer near you or request a free quote — a site survey settles the supply-capacity question no online guide can. For the wider decisions, see our workplace charging hub.

Grant amounts, deadlines and building-regulations requirements all change; the figures above were last checked in July 2026. Before committing budget, confirm the current Workplace Charging Scheme terms on GOV.UK, and treat tax questions — such as how free staff charging is treated for benefit-in-kind purposes — as ones for your accountant.