If you run a UK business and have been half-thinking about adding EV charging at work, April 2026 brought a genuinely useful nudge.
From 1 April 2026, the government's Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) increased from £350 to £500 per socket. The scheme has also been extended for a final year until 31 March 2027.
That does not magically make every installation cheap, and it definitely does not solve every grid or parking headache. But it does make the maths more interesting for smaller businesses, offices with a few staff EVs, and teams using electric company cars or pool cars.
What changed in April 2026?
According to GOV.UK, the Workplace Charging Scheme now covers up to 75% of the purchase and installation cost, capped at:
- £500 per socket
- up to 40 sockets across all sites per applicant
That is the headline change. Before 1 April 2026, the cap was £350 per socket. For installations completed on or after 1 April 2026, the higher cap applies.
The scheme is available across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and GOV.UK says it is open to eligible:
- businesses
- charities
- public sector organisations
- small accommodation businesses
What does that mean in real money?
The useful bit is not just the bigger headline number. It is how that cap changes the out-of-pocket cost on a modest installation.
Because the scheme covers 75% of costs up to the cap:
- a socket install costing £500 could be fully covered
- a socket install costing £600 could attract £450 of support
- a socket install costing £900 could attract the full £500 cap
In other words, the increased cap matters most once your real installed cost starts pushing beyond the old £350 ceiling. That is where the April 2026 change becomes more than a rounding error.
Why this matters for businesses that track mileage
At first glance, a charger grant and a mileage tracker look like two separate admin piles. In practice, they connect quite neatly.
If your team drives EVs for work, you usually end up caring about at least one of these:
- business mileage records for reimbursement or internal reporting
- charging costs for company cars or pool vehicles
- whether staff are mainly charging at home, at work, or in public
- the real running cost difference between EVs and petrol or diesel cars
Workplace charging can reduce public charging reliance, which often means more predictable per-mile costs. That is useful when you are budgeting, reviewing fleet decisions, or just trying to keep travel costs from turning into a foggy spreadsheet mess.
Three practical cases where the grant is especially useful
1) Small teams with a couple of company EVs
If you have one or two electric company cars, a couple of workplace sockets can be enough to cover most weekday charging. The grant will not fund the whole project in every case, but the extra £150 per socket versus the old cap can take some sting out of the install.
2) Businesses using pool cars or regular site visits
For businesses with shared vehicles, workplace charging helps keep those cars topped up between journeys without relying on staff remembering to find public chargers on the way back. That tends to make trip planning, downtime, and mileage records a lot cleaner.
3) Workplaces supporting staff charging
Even if the main goal is not fleet use, having on-site charging can still be practical where staff commute in EVs. It can help with recruitment and retention a bit, but it also gives you more flexibility if some staff occasionally use their cars for work trips and need straightforward access to charging during the day.
What to check before you assume the grant makes it worth doing
The grant is useful, but it is still worth being a bit hard-nosed before you press ahead.
- Parking control: are the bays actually private, available, and usable for the vehicles you have in mind?
- Electrical capacity: a bigger grant does not remove site power constraints.
- Usage policy: who can use the chargers, and how will that be managed?
- Admin model: if staff charge at work and also charge at home or publicly, how will you keep records sensible?
This is where better journey logs help. Even if you never need a perfect charging ledger, good mileage data gives you a clearer baseline for how much your EVs are actually being used and whether the installation is earning its keep.
The bigger 2026 takeaway
The 2026 EV story in the UK is no longer just "buy the car and hope the rest sorts itself out". Charging setup, reimbursement rules, tax changes, and per-mile budgeting are all getting a bit more grown-up.
The Workplace Charging Scheme increase is a sensible, practical policy change because it targets something businesses can actually act on now. If you were already close to installing workplace chargers, the new £500 per socket cap may be enough to bring the project forward.
And if you are comparing the numbers properly, pair that decision with clean mileage tracking. Once you know how far your vehicles really travel, it becomes much easier to judge whether workplace charging is a nice extra or a genuinely useful cost-control move.
Sources
- GOV.UK: Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026
- GOV.UK Find a Grant: Workplace Charging Scheme
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