Workplace electric vehicle charging: guidance for public bodies

Workplace charging for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) can provide both environmental and social benefits, and can help to incentivise employees to switch their private vehicle to an electric vehicle, especially those who may not be able to charge at their home. 

Workplace charging infrastructure can be installed expressly for staff’s own vehicles, or could be part of a wider scheme, such as allowing staff to make daytime use of a charging infrastructure primarily installed to charge the organisation’s business fleet overnight.

In 2025, 23.4% of new car registrations were BEVs, up from 16.6% in 2022. As of March 2026, there are almost 2 million BEVs on UK roads. After the home, it is probable the workplace will be the second most likely place a vehicle will be parked regularly, and for several hours.

Mobilityways Commuter Census 2025 shows that up to 97% of UK workers commute to work at least some of the time, with workers working from the workplace for an average of 3.4 days per week. UK transport statistics show 67% of workers usually commuted by car in 2024, rising to 79% in Wales. This means there are a significant number of parked cars at workplaces during the day. If workplace charging infrastructure can incentivise the switch to electric vehicles, there is significant opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas and air quality emissions from the commute.

Providing employees with electric vehicle charge points at the workplace can have an array of benefits, both to the employer and employee, including:

Improve public perception

Improving public perception of the organisation, demonstrating a leading commitment to both sustainability and social consciousness, to employees, customers, and the wider community. 

Support recruitment and retention

Benefiting employee recruitment, satisfaction, and retention, both in terms of providing a direct staff benefit, and working for an organisation with demonstrable environmental and social values.

Reduce travel emissions

Incentivising employees to switch to electric vehicles, which in turn reduces Scope 3 greenhouse gas as well as air quality emissions associated with the organisation’s grey fleet (staff business travel) and commuting. 

Generate additional revenue

Generating additional revenue from daytime use of charging infrastructure installed primarily for overnight charging of fleet vehicles.

Support battery health and longer journeys

Enabling employees to maintain their electric vehicle battery to within a 20-80% charge, which is optimal for battery health, and alleviating any range concerns from particularly long commutes.

Help employees without home charging

Helping to overcome the barrier of home-charging: an estimated 35% of homes in the UK, or 25% of homes in Wales, do not have off-street parking. By providing charging at work and at a similar price to home-based charging, the employer can provide a significant social benefit and enable these employees to switch to electric vehicles, without having to rely on more expensive public infrastructure.

Support electric vehicle salary sacrifice schemes

Supports the introduction of an electric-vehicle only salary sacrifice car scheme (beneficial in reducing staff business travel emissions), by making the scheme more accessible to all eligible employees. Priority and/or discount charging could be given to staff without off street parking.

To ensure the installation of electric vehicle charging infrastructure is a successful decision, it may prove useful to evaluate potential demand from employees, both existing and future, especially if the infrastructure is primarily for employees, rather than making additional use of fleet charging infrastructure. An effective employee survey should help the organisation gauge demand, identify and solve potential barriers to accessibility, and evaluate repayment plans.

Once the system is set up, clear and effective communication and promotion with employees on how to use the charge points is key to ensuring a good level of usage, including clear signage at the charge points. If possible, group the charge points together rather than have them dispersed around the car park, and the organisation may wish to implement a booking system, especially if demand is high.

As workplace charging is targeting the idea that vehicles are parked for a long period, 11 or 22 kW AC charge points would be recommended, unless there is a need within the business fleet for faster AC or DC charging. Most current BEVs can accept 11 kW charging, and a slower charge is better for battery health. 11 or 22 kW charge points are also lower cost than higher power charge points, and itmeans more charge points can be in use at the same time without exceeding the site’s electrical import capacity. Three hours charging at 11 kW gives around 33 kWh of energy, which is about 100 miles in a mid-sized electric car. While few battery electric cars can accept 22 kW AC, for a small cost increase they can be useful for larger battery electric vans with battery capacities of 100 kWh or greater.

Whether the charging infrastructure is for the fleet, the public, or employees’ private vehicles only, the organisation needs to consider the site’s electrical maximum import capacity. This is the maximum amount of power the site can draw from the electrical grid at any one time, measured in kilovolt-amperes (kVA). The site’s power factor (usually a number between 0.9 and 1) will then determine the amount of usable power (kW) available at the site (maximum import capacity x power factor = usable power). This information is available from the organisation’s electricity supplier. 

The organisation also needs to take into account the site’s current, and potential future usage (if also transitioning to electric heating, for example), altogether these could lead to a need for a significant increase in the site capacity, in which case the organisation needs to discuss this with their Distribution Network Operator (DNO, in south and mid Wales this is National Grid, formerly Western Power Distribution, in north Wales this is SP Energy Networks). Consideration should also be given to the use of on-site batteries to store unused site capacity during the working day and avoid the need for expensive capacity upgrades.

Dynamic smart charging means the vehicle and charge point share a data connection with a back-end system that can monitor site use to manage and restrict the kW output of the device remotely to optimise site energy consumption. This can be used to ensure the site’s capacity is not overloaded while vehicles are charging, and can be used to minimise the carbon intensity of the electricity used, by timing charging at times when there are peaks in renewable energy production, either within the grid, or by using on-site generation, if installed (making use of photovoltaic generation on a sunny day, for example).

HMRC states that there is no taxable benefit on the cost of electricity provided for employees’ electric vehicles, or on the costs of providing the charging infrastructure, providing certain conditions are met. This can be verified using their online tool: Check if you need to pay tax for charging an employee’s electric car - GOV.UK

It is up to the organisation to decide how and what level of repayment would work best for the employer and employee, options include:

• reimbursing the employer on a ‘pay as you go’ basis
• reimbursing the organisation for the exact cost of energy used for charging
• setting a fixed price on a monthly subscription style plan
• the employer covering the cost of charging employees’ electric vehicles fully, or a mix (covering the first £500 for example, then have a payment plan).

The decision will depend on factors important to the organisation, such as the desired level of incentive for employees to move to electric vehicles, the importance of reducing grey fleet and commuting greenhouse gas and air quality emissions, the size and location of the organisation, the cost of the electricity which could be below market price if generated on site, etc. As with providing clarity on how to use the equipment, providing a clear and transparent repayment plan to all employees is crucial.

The WLGA has detailed guidance to support councils in encouraging staff to travel more sustainably. These resources include an action plan and relevant case studies on workplace EV charging infrastructure.