As more Britons switch to electric vehicles, the need to establish more charging points is obvious. That in turn requires that more electricians are trained to install them to meet that need.
For this reason, taking an EV charging course can give you vital skills that are in high demand. They will enable you to find regular work in installing chargers, either at people’s homes or at public locations such as streets, car parks, or garages.
At present, the need for public chargers is an acute one, especially in parts of the UK where the provision of them is low. This in turn has raised concerns among drivers that they won’t be able to rely on the public network.
This was highlighted by the EVXperience Report 2024, published by EV management firm Zenith. The survey on which the report was based found that while 75 per cent of EV drivers would not go back to petrol or diesel and 68 per cent were confident enough to use a battery electric vehicle for longer trips, 76 per cent relied on home charging, not public chargers.
That last statistic did raise a real point of concern, raising what the firm called a ‘driveway divide’.
Among the details on this issue to emerge were that 69 per cent of drivers rely primarily on home charging and only 14 per cent rely on the local charging network. 52 per cent said they would have real difficulty if they had to rely on local public chargers.
Zenith CEO Tim Buchan said it is “no surprise” that constructing an EV charging network at sufficient scale to support the EV revolution should prove to be “a huge undertaking”.
He noted that great progress is being made, with the number of public chargers in January 2024 up 46 per cent on a year before, but acknowledged: “There is a serious risk that the EV transition will be delayed if worsening public perceptions of the network are not addressed.”
This is where electricians who get trained to install EVs can help resolve the issue. One very obvious issue is the postcode lottery when it comes to EV charger provision, as shown by the latest official government data for January 2024.
For example, on a measurement of chargers per 100,000 people, London performs very well with all but nine of its 33 local authorities (32 boroughs plus the City) in the top 20 per cent, with Two councils, Hammersmith & Fulham and the City of Westminster, have more than 1,300 per 100,000. Only Harrow (24.9) is among the worst.
By contrast, most major urban areas lag way behind. Of the English ‘core cities’, only Liverpool and Coventry are in the top 20 per cent, while Bradford and Bristol are in the bottom 20 per cent.
Birmingham has just 45.6 per 100,000 and its Black Country neighbours Walsall, Sandwell and Wolverhampton fare even worse, while the City of Manchester has only 56.7, which is still better than all but one of the other nine Greater Manchester boroughs. Tameside and Bolton, at 15.1 and 15.4, have the lowest rates in England.
However, the good news is that the Zenith survey found 82 per cent of respondents expect the public charger situation to improve over the next three years. There is clearly an opportunity for electricians trained to help bring this about.