EV Charging for Workplace & Office Car Parks

Workplace and office car parks are the most predictable EV charging environment in the commercial estate. Staff arrive within a tight morning window and leave nine or ten hours later, so every vehicle sits over the same long, stationary block. That dwell profile changes everything: you almost never need fast DC, a bay charging at 7kW returns a full commuter range several times over across a working day, and you can spread a modest grid supply across far more sockets than the raw kilowatts suggest. It is also the single clearest fit for the Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS), the one major EV grant still open to employers. The catch is not the chargers — it is the building sitting next to them, and the moment its load and the car park’s load collide. This page sets out the charger mix, the funding, the billing model and the one constraint that decides whether a workplace scheme lands cleanly.

The dwell profile: why AC almost always wins

A workplace bay is occupied for eight to ten hours by the same driver, five days a week. That is the longest, most repeatable dwell of any car-park type, and it flips the economics away from rapid charging entirely.

Do the arithmetic. A 7kW AC socket delivers roughly 50-60kWh across a nine-hour shift — comfortably 200+ miles, far more than the average UK commuter burns in a day. A 22kW socket does it in under two hours. Nobody at a desk needs a 50kW DC rapid that costs £10,000-£35,000 installed and, on a fixed daytime supply, would only sit idle once the car is full. Rapid DC is for transit and dwell of minutes, not the office.

So the workplace default is AC with dynamic load balancing (DLB). Because staff cars are parked far longer than they need to charge, you can deploy more sockets than your supply could power simultaneously and let DLB throttle and rotate current across them through the day. Every car still leaves full; you simply avoid paying for a grid connection sized to an unrealistic all-at-once peak. That single design choice is what keeps most workplace schemes on their existing supply — see is car park EV charging worth it for how utilisation drives the return.

Site size	Recommended mix	Indicative installed cost (ex-grid)
Small office (≤20 bays)	7kW AC, DLB across a shared supply	~£1,500-£2,500/socket
Mid workplace (20-60 bays)	Mostly 7kW + a few 22kW dual-socket, DLB	~£1,500 (7kW) to £3,000-£5,500 (22kW)
Large/campus (60+ bays)	7-22kW AC in phased zones, DLB per zone	scaled; possible one-off supply upgrade

Figures are indicative market ranges as at 2026 and exclude any grid work. See the full cost breakdown for how supply, groundworks and billing hardware move the number.

The biggest constraint: your building load, not your chargers

Here is what separates workplace from every other vertical. A retail or destination car park is usually a standalone electrical entity. A workplace car park shares a supply, or at least a site, with an occupied building — and that building has its own daytime peak.

The clash is structural. Chargers draw hardest in the morning as staff plug in on arrival. That is exactly when the building’s own demand climbs: HVAC ramping up, lifts, servers, kitchens, lighting. Bolt an uncontrolled bank of chargers onto a supply already near its ceiling and you either trip the main incomer or trigger a DNO reinforcement quote you did not budget for.

The fix is the same DLB, extended to the whole site. Site-wide load management meters the building’s actual draw in real time and only ever hands the chargers the headroom that is genuinely spare — dialling car-park current down when the building peaks at 11am, and back up as the building winds down in the afternoon. Long staff dwell is what makes this painless: throttling a car that will sit for another six hours costs nobody anything.

Get this right and most workplace sites charge dozens of cars on their existing connection with no DNO upgrade. Get it wrong and the supply becomes the entire project. This is the first thing our feasibility assessment checks: your current maximum demand, your spare headroom, and whether a smart site controller keeps you clear of a connection application. Because these are import-only chargers, any capacity conversation runs through the DNO’s demand-connection process, not a generation application.

Funding: the clearest WCS fit in the whole market

The Workplace Charging Scheme exists for precisely this car-park type, and workplaces are one of the few settings where a major EV grant is still live.

As at 2026 the WCS gives:

• Up to £500 per socket (raised from £350 on 1 April 2026)
• 75% of the purchase and installation cost, whichever is lower
• A maximum of 40 sockets across all of an organisation’s sites — a £20,000 cap
• Confirmed open to 31 March 2027
• Up to £2,000 per socket for state-funded education

The scope is the point: WCS covers workplace, staff and fleet off-street bays — exactly what an office car park is. It does not cover public off-street parking, which is why a retail scheme cannot touch it. If your bays are for staff and visitors on business, you qualify; you apply through an OZEV-authorised installer.

Don’t stop at the grant, though. The 100% First-Year Allowance on new EV charge-point equipment (extended to 31 March 2027 for Corporation Tax) lets a profitable business write off the full cost against tax in year one — often worth more than the WCS itself, and stackable with it. Second-hand or mixed-use kit falls back to standard allowances, and you should take your own tax advice.

We map both against your specific spend in grants and funding, and set out where a fully-funded CPO model fits versus buying the kit outright in funded vs owner-operated.

Access and billing: RFID, salary sacrifice and cost recovery

A workplace car park is not public, so the access and billing model is different from a forecourt — and simpler.

Staff-only access. You don’t want passing drivers on a supply you’ve sized for your own people. RFID cards or app authentication lock the chargers to registered staff and fleet vehicles, which also gives you clean per-user energy data for HR, payroll and expenses. Note that once bays are genuinely staff-only, the Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 (contactless, price display, 99% reliability duties) don’t bite — those apply to public chargers. If you open any bays to visitors or the public, that changes.

Salary sacrifice. Most workplace EV demand is driven by salary-sacrifice car schemes, where an employee leases an EV through gross pay. Those drivers expect to top up at the office, and the scheme’s whole value proposition assumes they can. Workplace charging is effectively part of your benefits package — under-provision it and the salary-sacrifice take-up stalls.

Cost-recovery billing. Few employers want to profit from staff charging; most want to recover the electricity cost cleanly and stay clear of benefit-in-kind complications. Smart chargers with MID-certified metering let you bill at, or a set margin above, your own energy tariff per kWh — transparent, auditable, and defensible to HMRC. Reimbursement can flow through the RFID data straight into payroll.

Decide early who pays: fully employer-funded (a benefit), full cost recovery (neutral), or a small margin (a modest contribution to the asset). Any of the three works on the same hardware — the FAQs cover the tax and reporting detail.

Planning, standards and getting it specified right

Workplace installs are among the most straightforward to consent and build, which is another reason the vertical delivers.

Planning. Since 29 May 2025, free-standing charger upstands are permitted development up to 2.7m (1.6m near dwellings), and wall-mounted units are PD where the casing is under 0.2 cubic metres — so a typical car-park bollard or wall box rarely needs a full application. New builds and major renovations with more than 10 parking spaces already have to provide chargepoints and cable routes under Building Regs Approved Document S (England), so newer offices are often part-wired already.

Standards. Insist on an OZEV-authorised, NICEIC- or NAPIT-registered installer working to the IET Code of Practice for EV Charging Equipment Installation (5th Ed, 2023) and BS 7671 Section 722. Specify OCPP-compliant hardware so you are never locked to one back-office, and MID-certified metering so your billing stands up. If any bays are accessible, PAS 1899:2022 sets the geometry (screen 800-1300mm, cable ≤7.5m).

Covered and underground car parks. Many offices park below the building. Government interim fire guidance (July 2023) applies: get a competent fire risk assessment; sprinklers are recognised as effective.

The result is a scheme that consents quickly, sits on your existing supply, qualifies for the one live employer grant, and keeps your salary-sacrifice drivers charged. Start with a feasibility and quote request — we’ll check your supply headroom, size the mix against your headcount, and model the WCS and tax position for your actual numbers.

Frequently asked questions

How many chargers can a workplace car park run without upgrading the grid connection?

More than most people expect, because staff dwell is so long. With dynamic load balancing spreading a fixed supply across many 7kW sockets — and rotating current through the day — a typical office often charges dozens of cars on its existing connection. The limiting factor is rarely the chargers; it’s whether the building’s own daytime peak leaves spare headroom. Site-wide load management that throttles the car park when the building peaks is usually what keeps you clear of a DNO demand-connection upgrade. A feasibility check on your maximum demand confirms it for your site.

Does the Workplace Charging Scheme cover office staff car parks?

Yes — this is exactly what the WCS is for. As at 2026 it gives up to £500 per socket, 75% of the cost, to a maximum of 40 sockets across all your sites (a £20,000 cap), confirmed to 31 March 2027. It covers workplace, staff and fleet off-street bays, but not public parking. You apply through an OZEV-authorised installer. In many cases the 100% First-Year Allowance on new charge-point equipment is worth even more than the grant, and the two can stack — take your own tax advice. See our grants and funding page for the detail.

Should we charge staff for workplace charging, and how?

Most employers aim to recover the electricity cost cleanly rather than profit from it. Smart chargers with MID-certified metering and RFID access let you bill each staff member per kWh at, or slightly above, your own energy tariff, with the data flowing into payroll or expenses. Because the bays are staff-only, the Public Charge Point Regulations don’t apply. You can run it three ways — fully employer-funded as a benefit, full cost recovery (neutral), or a small margin — on the same hardware. Salary-sacrifice drivers in particular expect reliable workplace top-ups, so under-providing can stall scheme take-up.