Posted: 5th August 2026
Is the UK’s Charging Network Keeping Up With Demand? New Data Says Yes
One question comes up regularly when we’re talking to businesses about EV infrastructure investment: “is the public charging network actually reliable enough to support a serious transition?” It’s a fair concern, and new research gives a fairly direct answer.
Zapmap and the Green Finance Institute have just published the third edition of their utilisation report, covering Q1 2024 to Q4 2025. The headline finding reads that despite ultra-rapid (150kW+) charger provision growing by 40% over the period, utilisation rates have held steady, averaging 12.8% in Q4 2025 compared with 12.4% the previous year. The overall network grew by 13% in the year to December 2025, while total energy delivered rose by 21%. Supply is going up, and so is use.
Ultra-Rapid Chargers Are Carrying More of the Load
Ultra-rapid chargers accounted for an estimated 52% of all energy delivered by public chargers in Q4 2025, up from 44% a year earlier. That tracks with what we see from clients: businesses and fleet operators are increasingly specifying higher-power infrastructure from day one, rather than starting with slower AC chargers and planning an upgrade down the line.
For operational fleets, this makes sense. Dwell time is often fixed – if a vehicle needs to be back on the road by a certain hour, a slow charge isn’t an option. The power specification decision at installation stage has direct commercial consequences, not just technical ones, which is why getting it right the first time is important.
The Gap Between Rated Power and Real-World Output
We noticed that the report does identify one persistent challenge: the difference between a charger’s stated speed and what it realistically delivers. Ultra-rapid chargers averaged 55.4kW in practice, roughly 26% of their rated capacity. Vehicle acceptance limits, charging curves and grid constraints all play a part.
Operators are tackling this through dynamic load balancing, modular power architectures and on-site battery storage. Battery storage in particular is something we’ve been building into site designs for clients where grid capacity is tight – it’s not a new approach, but wider adoption is starting to make a measurable difference to how consistently sites perform.
For anyone currently scoping out an installation, this is a conversation we think is worth having early. How a site is designed, what vehicles will use it, and how electrical load is managed across the network all affect real-world output significantly. Identifying constraints at the survey stage is considerably cheaper than addressing them after the fact.
What the Numbers Really Tell Us
Taken together, the data points to a charging network that is getting more capable, not just bigger. Utilisation has held up through a period of rapid expansion, operators are investing in smarter EV charging infrastructure, and driver confidence appears to be building as a result.
For businesses still deciding when to move on EV charging, that’s a key factor. The public network is increasingly dependable. The more pressing question for most organisations is whether their own on-site setup will be ready when their fleet – and their staff – need it to be.
If that’s a conversation you’re having right now, our team will be happy to help.