How do you survey staff demand for EV charging?

Survey actual attendance, electric vehicle use, home charging access and willingness to pay before choosing sockets. Separate current need from possible future purchases and test the busiest shift. The Workplace Charging Scheme supports up to 40 eligible sockets across an applicant's sites [S1]; that limit is not a recommended installation size. Turn responses into an energy and parking schedule. Checked October 2026.

Last checked 16 October 2026

What should a staff EV charging survey measure?

Measure the charging service staff would use under stated conditions. Asking only whether employees like the idea of chargers tells you little about parking overlap, electricity demand or willingness to pay. Start with a short explanation of your proposed users, charging hours and the decision the answers will inform.

Welsh Government guidance for public bodies recommends evaluating current and future staff demand, accessibility barriers and repayment plans. [S2] Businesses can use those planning prompts without assuming the guidance creates a UK-wide installation requirement.

Use this suggested questionnaire as a starting point. Adapt the answer choices to your workforce and show the conditions clearly.

Include “not sure” where staff cannot reasonably know an answer. Avoid making participation sound like a promise of a space or an invitation to order a vehicle. Offer a separate route for staff who need a private accessibility discussion.

How do you separate current charging need from future interest?

Group responses into existing plug-in drivers, people with a firm vehicle change planned and people expressing general interest. Record each group’s attendance by site and shift. Keep undecided respondents visible rather than assigning them an assumed purchase date. Use the UK EV sales statistics guide to distinguish national market context from your workforce responses.

Show staff a draft tariff and access policy before asking willingness to pay. For an assumed survey scenario, you might ask about charging at 35p/kWh and repeat the question at 45p/kWh. These are research assumptions, not recommended prices. Do not collect a positive answer about free charging and treat it as evidence for paid use.

Ask which days staff actually attend. Hybrid working and rotating shifts need separate rows in the analysis. A person who works remotely on your busiest parking day should not automatically be included in that day’s charger queue. Publish a brief explanation of how responses will become a pilot specification.

Use charging staff for workplace charging to develop the tariff questions and workplace charging policy to set the conditions.

How do you turn survey answers into chargers and power?

Kilowatts (kW) measure power. Kilowatt-hours (kWh) measure energy. Estimate the energy needed during a shared parking window, then ask an installer to test equipment choice, losses and individual vehicle limits.

An illustration, not a quote: assume 12 drivers attend together, each wants 10 kWh delivered and each is parked for 8 hours. Delivered energy is 12 × 10 = 120 kWh. At an assumed 90% charging efficiency, input energy is 120 ÷ 0.90 = 133.3 kWh. Average input across the window is 133.3 ÷ 8 = 16.7 kW.

That average does not tell you how many sockets to install. If staff cannot leave their workstations to move vehicles, sharing a small number of sockets may fail even when enough electrical energy is available. Ask the installer to model simultaneous connections and early departures.

Keep the following sensitivity cases separate. All inputs below are assumptions.

Read how many chargers your site needs before using a socket count as a procurement target.

How do you protect staff privacy during the survey?

Explain the purpose, who will see responses and how long you intend to retain identifiable information. Keep an initial demand exercise separate from any later named booking or payment account. For the first exercise, consider broad distance bands and charging-access questions instead of exact home locations.

The ICO says personal data should be sufficient for the purpose, relevant and limited to what is necessary. [S3] Agree the collection and retention approach with your data protection lead. If you need legal advice about your specific arrangements, check with your solicitor.

Share aggregated findings with installers. Avoid sending individual staff responses when totals by shift and energy need answer the design question. Explain small-group results carefully so that colleagues are not unnecessarily identifiable from a published table.

How do you test the results before expanding workplace charging?

Run a pilot under the intended payment and access conditions. Measure delivered energy, occupied time, missed bookings and requests that could not be served. Compare those observations with the survey rather than treating every expression of interest as a recurring session.

Agree how fleet vehicles and staff cars share the bays. Give staff clear instructions on moving vehicles, reporting faults and charging outside their usual shift. Welsh guidance stresses communication and signage after installation. [S2]

WCS support is conditional: the published scheme offers up to 75% of eligible costs, capped at £500 per socket, until 31 March 2027. [S1] Check the current application position before placing orders, and discuss tax treatment with your accountant. Keep employee charging costs separate from any public charging income forecast.

What should you do next?

Prepare an aggregated shift table, the survey’s assumed prices and a list of unresolved access needs. Ask for a site design that connects the responses to a parking plan and charging timetable.

Visit offices and workplaces, then get matched with an installer that covers your area.

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