Charging cable connected to the rear of a white electric car on a residential street.

EV charging recruitment · United Kingdom

EV charging recruitment agency for the UK

Net Zero Evolution is an EV charging recruitment agency for the UK. We recruit site acquisition, grid and connections, field service, installation, operations and commercial people for charge point operators, manufacturers and installers. Grid connections are the cost and the delay here, and every operator knows it. What they are less often told is that grid is rarely the hire. Securing the sites and staffing the field service that keeps them running are, and those are the two things a recruiter can actually change.

Those are two completely different hires, and almost nobody is good at both. Running alongside them is a third market that gets talked about far less: the installers putting charge points on houses, in car parks and at workplaces, who are about to have their whole field workforce revalued by a qualification deadline. We work all three.

Clients we have helped

EV charging is not one market

The EV charging markets we recruit for in the UK

Public charging, depot charging, the software platforms and the hardware manufacturers all hire differently, and people rarely move between them. Whichever one you sit in, the hiring problem next door is not your hiring problem.

Public charging and CPOs: You are hiring grid connection, siting and field service across an estate that is dispersed by design, and so is everyone you are bidding against for the same people.
Bus, truck and depot charging: If you build the charging, the people who genuinely understand megawatt charging sit with a handful of specialist providers, and you already know who they are. If you run the fleet, the expertise you need is one line inside a generalist operations role, so it has no job title to advertise against.
eMSPs, roaming and charging software: You are hiring like a software business, not an energy one, which means you lose people to fintech on salary before you reach offer. The one thing you cannot hire generically is roaming and protocol interoperability.
Charge point manufacturers: Design is not usually where it hurts. Certification, compliance and the units already in the field are, and the gap that keeps reappearing is embedded firmware and after-sales engineering.
Home and domestic installation: You are not competing with other charging businesses for electricians, you are competing with solar and heat pumps for the same qualified trades, and the qualification itself is becoming the constraint rather than the experience.
Fleet and workplace charging: Almost never its own job title, so when you need it you are hiring out of consultancies and specialist installers rather than from a business that looks like yours. The buyer sits in fleet or facilities rather than energy, which changes who the hire has to convince.

How we work here

How we recruit for EV charging in the UK

Recruitment fundamentals travel. Markets do not. The UK puts a band on the face of an advert far more often than anywhere else we work, and charging is no exception. That cuts both ways: a candidate knows what the market pays before you call them, and a band set slightly under it is visible to everyone including your competitors. We have been hiring into UK charging for years, from field service engineers and CAD technicians through construction and site acquisition to product and commercial leadership, and the method flexes to the market every time.

Before you brief anyone

Two questions worth answering first

Hiring from outside the sector means persuading somebody to change industry, and that turns on two things most businesses have never written down.

Why should a good engineer come into EV charging rather than any other part of the transition? And why should they come to you rather than the operator down the road?

Most cannot answer either, because most are offering the same things: a growing market, a good team, interesting work. None of that is a reason to move.

A business that hires on skills alone, without knowing whether the person actually cares about the transition, is usually hiring for the same role again sooner than it planned.

Why hiring here is different from anywhere else

Why EV charging hiring in the UK is different

Grid is the cost. Land and field service are the hires.

Grid connections are the headline problem in UK charging and nobody who operates here needs telling why. Government is consulting on a £190 million scheme because grid capacity at some motorway service areas is still not commercially viable, and NESO’s own account of Ofgem’s September 2026 assessment is that connections reform did not make the progress hoped. On a hub site it is the cost and it is the delay. What it usually is not, yet, is the hire. Most operators are absorbing grid work through people they already have, through their ICP, or by waiting, and that is why grid and DNO liaison is only now starting to appear as a job title of its own. It will become one, and on the hub side we would expect it inside the next year. The two constraints you can recruit your way out of today are different, and they are unrelated to each other. Ultra-rapid is growing at close to 40% a year and every one of those bays needs a site, so the scarce person is a commercial real estate specialist who can secure forecourt and roadside land rather than an engineer. Underneath that sits a field service and installation gap that shows up at operators of every size and every level of funding, which is the opposite of how scarcity usually behaves. A hiring plan built only around the grid headline will miss both.

Where the pressure is right now

The hardest EV charging roles to fill in the UK right now

Site and land acquisition. One operator is currently running the same senior site acquisition role in five UK cities at once. That is not a growth plan, that is a hedge against not filling it anywhere, and the brief asks for five years of commercial real estate experience and a chartered surveying qualification. The people who fit have almost never worked in charging, which is a hiring problem and an EVP problem before it is a search problem.

Field service and installation. The most persistent shortage in UK charging, and the one least affected by who owns the company. When the same engineer role appears through two different intermediaries in adjoining territories at the same band, it has not been filled and the brief usually needs to change.

Post-acquisition integration. Three charging businesses changed hands between February and May 2026. The buyers now need engineering leads who can merge two backend platforms, field service managers inheriting somebody else’s fault log, and commercial leads re-pricing an acquired customer base. That is a different hire to a growth hire and it does not wait.

Certified domestic and workplace installation electricians. Since 1 October every person on the van needs the EV award in their own name rather than the firm holding it through one nominated person. Any installer whose field team is only partly qualified loses deployable capacity on that date, and every business in the same position will be looking for the same certified people at the same time. It is the most predictable squeeze in UK charging and almost nobody has planned for it.

Grid and DNO liaison on hub sites. Not urgent everywhere yet, and about to be. The moment an operator has two or three hub sites stuck in the same queue it becomes a named job title, and there is no established pool of people who have done it in charging specifically.

Based on live vacancy activity across the UK charging market. Reviewed 14 September 2026, updated monthly.

Delivery

Work we have done in UK charging

Two recent UK charging engagements.

A charge point operator built from two people up: A UK charge point operator with two people in it took investment from a large corporate and had to become a real company quickly. We built the team: the chief operating officer and operations director, regional sales directors across three territories, the bid director and bid managers under them, contracts, network and technical design management, project managers, quantity surveying and data. Around thirty people now, and winning awards.
Charging engineering inside an energy services business: An energy services business running charging alongside a wider renewables programme needed EV charging engineering it could not reach through its usual channels. We ran those searches alongside the electrical, civil and controls engineering on the rest of the programme.

Salary Intelligence

What people are actually paid

Role	Location	Band	Basis
EV charger electrician and installer	UK	£35,000 to £47,500	Annual base salary

EV charger electrician and installer: Location UK Band £35,000 to £47,500 Basis Annual base salary

Market Intelligence

The market right now

6 October 2026

Growth is fastest at the ultra-rapid end

The UK public network stood at 124,738 charge points at the end of September 2026, up 9% year on year. Ultra-rapid units at 150kW and above grew 39.1% in the same period, against 23.1% for en-route charging, 13.4% for on-street and 4.26% for destination charging.

Source: Zapmap statistics for Q3 2026 .
6 October 2026

Hubs keep multiplying

There are 1,070 charging hubs of eight or more rapid or ultra-rapid chargers in the UK, with 144 added so far in 2026.

Source: Zapmap statistics for Q3 2026 .
made 2023, first reports due 14 January 2026

Reliability is now a reporting and enforcement matter

Under the Public Charge Point Regulations 2023, a rapid charging network must be reliable on average 99% of the time across each calendar year. Operators report annually, with the first report for 2025 due by 14 January 2026. Civil penalties reach £10,000 for a network of rapid charge points that misses the reliability standard, and £10,000 for each public charge point in a reporting breach.

Source: The Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 .
6 October 2025, updated 24 March 2026

Installers now need the qualification in their own name

Since 1 October 2026 the updated Electrotechnical Assessment Specification has required employed persons carrying out EV charge point installation, and the qualified supervisors responsible for that work, to hold the relevant acceptable qualifications. Two further City & Guilds awards (2919-01 and 2919-02) were added to the accepted list with effect from 9 March 2026.

Source: EAS changes to competence requirements , EV charging installations qualifications update .
7 July 2026

The home grant moved to renters, flat owners and on-street households

From 1 April 2026 the chargepoint grant for residents, landlords and workplaces rose from £350 to £500 per socket. Households with only on-street parking can claim up to £500 for a cross-pavement solution such as a charging gully, and renters and flat owners with private off-street parking can claim up to £500. The continuing grants run to 31 March 2027.

Source: Changes to chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 , Electric vehicle chargepoint grants .
25 March 2026, grant page updated 7 July 2026

The money moved to depots

The £170 million Depot Charging Scheme covers up to 70% of charge point and civils cost for vans, coaches and eHGVs, up to £1 million per applicant. Workplace Charging Scheme grants rose from £350 to £500 per socket on 1 April 2026.

Source: Depot Charging Scheme announcement , Changes to chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 .
26 June 2026

Motorway grid support is out to consultation

Government consulted in June 2026 on a £190 million Strategic Charging Infrastructure scheme, drawn from £400 million announced for 2026 to 2030, to fund grid capacity at motorway service areas where the connection cost is not commercially viable. Sites qualify only where connection costs are at least £3 million and at least £300,000 per MVA. It follows the £70 million Rapid Charging Fund pilot, which concluded without making awards.

Source: Strategic Charging Infrastructure scheme .
10 February to 19 May 2026

Three charging businesses changed hands in 2026

In February 2026 a public charging network of more than 1,600 bays across more than 450 sites was sold by its energy-company parent. The same month an on-street operator with about 1,500 charge points went into administration and was sold in a pre-pack, with all 63 staff transferring. In May 2026 a fleet charging provider and its depot software were bought out of administration by a utility-group operator.

Source: Be.EV acquires Mer as consolidation continues , Trojan Energy sold in pre-pack sale , Pod buys EO Charging out of administration .

Market intelligence reviewed 27 October 2026.

TalentPilot

We would rather you needed us less

Most agencies are built so that you call them again. The model only works while hiring stays hard for you, which means nobody selling it has much reason to make it easier.

We took the opposite bet, and not only out of principle. A business that hires well on its own stays a client for years and brings us the roles that are genuinely difficult. A business that depends on an agency resents every invoice and leaves the first time somebody undercuts us. The second kind of relationship is worth less and lasts less long.

So we built TalentPilot. Twenty-one tools across planning, attracting, hiring and keeping people: map the roles before they become urgent, see where the people actually are, write the advert properly, run a consistent interview, and know which of your new starters is at risk before they resign.

And one thing almost nobody has. Every week, the real reasons candidates said no. Not a summary. The actual objections: the money, the location, the counter-offer, the part of the role that put them off. Most businesses never find out, which is why they keep making the same hire the same way.

Everything on this page is one market on one date. Our clients see their own, continuously.

What is left for us is the work that genuinely needs a search. That is the part we are good at, and the part worth paying for.

See how TalentPilot works

How a search runs

You see it as we see it

Before we start: The brief and the target companies are agreed in writing. You know which businesses we are approaching and which we are not, before anyone is contacted.
Every week: The outreach, the response levels, where each person sits in the process, and the reasons anyone said no. The money, the location, the counter-offer, the part of the role that put them off.
When it stalls: You hear it from us. A search that has gone quiet is a conversation about the brief, not a report we delay until you ask.

What happens when you get in touch

A first call is a conversation about your hiring plan. Half an hour, with the consultant who runs this market for us.

We will tell you what we are seeing in your part of it: where the difficulty sits, which roles are moving and what people are actually being paid. You get that whether you decide to work with us or not.

If there is something we can help with, we will say what it would take and roughly how long. If there isn't, we will say so and point you at whoever is better placed.

No slide deck, no pitch, and nobody will chase you afterwards.

For Employers

Build the team that delivers.

Book a Discovery Call

For Candidates

Find your place in the transition.

Explore Open Roles

If you work in this market

What we are seeing from the other side

The same searches, read from the candidate side.

Field service engineers: You are the most fought-over people in UK charging and the published bands do not always show it. Rates move quickly and the difference between operators on call-out, van, tools and travel is often worth more than the headline salary.
Domestic and workplace installers: Hold the EV qualification in your own name and you are worth materially more from 1 October than you were in September, because it stops being something your employer can hold on your behalf. If you do not hold it yet, ask who is paying for it before you accept anything.
Property and site acquisition: If you have secured commercial or roadside sites in any sector, charging wants you and will usually pay to bring you across. Almost nobody hiring expects sector experience, because there is barely any to hire.
People inside an acquired business: Three networks changed owner this year. If yours was one, you are worth more to the acquirer than the org chart currently says, because you know the estate and the faults nobody has documented.
Where it leads: Field service into commissioning leadership, project delivery into country or regional management, and site acquisition into development directorship. The market is young enough that the route up is shorter than in most sectors.

Questions

Clear answers for the next step.

Which recruitment agencies specialise in charge point operator hiring?

We do. Net Zero Evolution recruits only in the decarbonisation of transport and energy, and EV charging is one of our core sectors. For charge point operators that means site acquisition, grid and connections, field service, operations, product and commercial leadership.

What qualifications does an EV charge point installer need in the UK?

A full electrical qualification, such as a Level 3 electrotechnical qualification or NVQ Level 3 with BS 7671, then a charge point specific Level 3 award in addition. Since 1 October 2026 every individual doing the work needs that award, not one supervisor covering a team, so the pool you can hire from is smaller than the qualified pool. Our Insights article on installer qualifications covers it in full.

What EV charging roles do you recruit for in the UK?

Site and land acquisition, construction and project management, grid and DNO liaison, field service and installation engineering, domestic and workplace installation, network operations, product and software, and commercial leadership up to managing director. We work public charging, depot and fleet, and the domestic and workplace installer market, and we work the whole chart rather than one level of it.

What do EV charging engineers earn in the UK?

Installation and electrician roles carrying EV charging advertise between about £38,000 and £45,000. Commissioning engineers advertise higher, between about £40,000 and £60,000, with a mean advertised salary of £61,000. Those are live UK adverts that published a band, read on 28 September 2026, rather than modelled averages. The gap between the two is the point: far more people can install a unit than have taken a rapid one through to energisation on a live site.

Is the grid the main problem for UK charging projects?

It is the biggest cost and the longest delay on a hub site, and no operator needs telling that. It is rarely the hire, though. Most are absorbing grid work through people they already have or through their ICP, so the roles that are genuinely hard to fill right now are site acquisition and field service. We would expect dedicated grid and DNO liaison roles to become standard on the hub side inside the next year.

How long should a UK charging hire take?

A straightforward engineering hire here closes in four to six weeks. Past seven, the brief is usually the problem rather than the market, and the right response is to revisit the person spec rather than widen the search.

Do you cover field service and installation as well as leadership?

Yes, and on the same desk. A charging operator needs both, they compete for attention internally, and an agency that only covers one end of it will quietly push you towards the end it can fill.

Do you work with domestic and workplace installation businesses?

Yes, and it is a genuinely different market from public charging rather than a smaller version of it. You are competing for electricians against solar and heat pumps, the grant money has moved to renters, flat owners and households without a driveway, and from 1 October every person carrying out the work needs the EV qualification in their own name rather than the firm holding it for them.

Where in the UK do you recruit?

Everywhere the work is. Site acquisition and product roles concentrate in London, land acquisition spreads across the regional cities by design, and field service and installation is the most geographically spread hiring in the sector.