Workplace EV Charging Costs in 2026: Full Price Guide

Charging hardware has a price list; charging projects do not. The gap between the two — civils, supply work, software, commissioning — is where workplace charging budgets go wrong, usually in the optimistic direction. Here is the complete 2026 picture, line by line.

Hardware: the easy 40%

AC sockets dominate workplace charging. Budget £1,200–£2,500 installed per 7kW socket and £1,800–£3,500 per 22kW socket for commercial-grade, OCPP-compliant units — the duty-cycle-rated hardware, not the domestic units that fail under fleet use by year three. Dual-socket pedestals shave per-socket cost where bays pair neatly.

DC rapid units run £25,000–£60,000 installed for 50–120kW. They earn their place for mid-shift turnarounds; they are luxuries anywhere vehicles dwell for hours.

Civils: the honest 30–40%

Trenching, ducting, charger bases, reinstatement of tarmac: on greenfield-easy sites the civils add 30% to hardware; on sites where sockets scatter far from the distribution board, civils can exceed the hardware entirely. Two rules keep this line sane. Cluster sockets along economical duct routes — the cheapest metre of trench is the one not dug. And duct for the end-state count on day one: laying spare duct costs pounds per metre, while reopening a finished car park costs thousands.

The electrical backbone: the forgotten 15%

New distribution boards or ways, protection devices, cabling sized for the load, and — on any multi-socket site — a dynamic load management controller with CT metering at the intake (£2,000–£6,000 depending on platform). Load management is the line that pays for itself before commissioning ends: it routinely lets a site run three to five times more sockets inside its existing supply capacity than nameplate arithmetic permits, deferring DNO upgrade quotes that start at five figures.

If the site has or plans solar, the same controller does double duty steering charging into generation surplus — the configuration that turns export-rate electricity into full-displacement-rate vehicle fuel.

The grant: minus £350 per socket

The Workplace Charging Scheme contributes £350 per socket, up to 40 sockets per applicant, redeemed as a discount on the installer’s invoice. Eligibility is broad (registered businesses, charities, public bodies with off-street parking), installation must be by an OZEV-authorised installer using approved hardware — firms like Yorkshire electrical contractor AMP Pro Electrical handle the voucher paperwork as standard — and the cap is cumulative — phased rollouts stay supported until your fortieth socket. On a ten-socket project the WCS takes £3,500 off; never leave it unclaimed.

Worked examples

Small workplace — 4 × 7kW sockets, sockets near the board: hardware ~£6,500, civils ~£3,000, electrical ~£2,500, commissioning ~£800. Total ~£12,800; less £1,400 WCS = ~£11,400.

Mid-size — 10 sockets mixed 7/22kW, load-managed: hardware ~£21,000, civils ~£9,000, electrical and controller ~£8,000, commissioning ~£1,500. Total ~£39,500; less £3,500 WCS = ~£36,000.

Fleet depot — 16 managed sockets plus one 60kW DC unit: ~£105,000–£130,000 before grant, heavily civils-dependent. At this scale the load management strategy and DNO position drive the budget more than the hardware list.

Year-one tax treatment helps every tier: chargepoint equipment qualifies for first-year capital allowance treatment and the Annual Investment Allowance covers qualifying plant — most projects are fully expensed in the year of purchase.

Running costs nobody quotes

Electricity aside: back-office software (£60–£200 per socket per year on commercial platforms), an annual electrical inspection, and a maintenance reserve of roughly £50–£100 per socket per year for connectors, cables and the occasional RCD. Sites billing users add payment processing. None of it is large; all of it belongs in the five-year model.

And the electricity itself is the strategic line. Grid-charged at 24–30p/kWh, a 20,000-mile van costs ~£1,650 a year to fuel — already half the public-network price. Solar-charged at an effective 5–8p, it costs under £500. That spread, multiplied across a fleet and 25 panel-warranty years, is why charging projects increasingly arrive with a solar feasibility stapled to them.

The procurement checklist

Itemised civils in every quote (a lump sum means nobody measured). OCPP compliance in writing. Load management capability even if phase one doesn’t need it. WCS handled by the installer, voucher window matched to programme. Duct for the end state. And if a roof or car park sits unused above the project — get the combined solar feasibility before signing anything single-purpose.