Guidance

Monthly total number of electric vehicle public charging devices available in the UK methodology note

Updated 9 October 2024

Introduction

These statistics have been published by the Department for Transport (DfT) each month since December 2021. This document provides background information about the data sources and the methodology behind the statistics.

Quality

These statistics are labelled ‘official statistics in development’, formerly called Experimental Statistics. Official statistics in development are official statistics that are temporarily undergoing a development and are being tested with users, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. We expect this release series to remain labelled as official statistics in development for the foreseeable future. Electric vehicle charging infrastructure is a rapidly developing policy area, so this release series may develop alongside changes in policy and user interest. 

We welcome feedback from users of these statistics. This can be provided by emailing us.

Data source

We source the data in this statistical release series from Zapmap. We retrieve Zapmap data via an Application Programming Interface (API) around the first the month. The data represents a snapshot of publicly accessible devices across the UK reported as operational at midnight as of the first of the month.

Data cleaning

The Zapmap data is cleaned and quality checked before it is included in this release series. Our data processing removes charging devices located in the Channel Islands (as this release series covers the UK only) and charging devices that are designed for charging hydrogen-powered electric vehicles.

How we measure charging infrastructure

Statistics in this release series refer to ‘charging devices’. Devices are physical units with connecting sockets capable of charging the batteries of plug-in electric vehicles.

Each charging device may offer one or multiple connecting sockets. Some devices with multiple sockets can charge only one vehicle at once, and others can charge multiple vehicles simultaneously. This means some devices have greater charging capability than others regardless of the number of sockets. Zapmap data does not indicate whether devices can charge only a single vehicle or multiple vehicles simultaneously. For these reasons, we do not cover charging sockets in this release series.

Coverage

Zapmap report that they have coverage of over 95% of public charging. Chargepoint operators supply information about their devices to Zapmap. The public can also notify Zapmap about devices not already on their network.

The data does not cover privately owned domestic or workplace devices that are not accessible to the public. The total number of all electric vehicle charging devices across the UK will be higher than estimated in this publication.

There are currently no other sources with similar coverage against which we could verify Zapmap’s data.

Limitations to month-on-month changes in these statistics

As the data represents available devices at a snapshot in time, any increases in device numbers between 2 periods of time reflects the total net increase in charging devices between 2 snapshots of data, not the number of installations in that period. Charging devices may be added to the Zapmap data at any time including later than when they were installed. Decommissioned charging devices are also removed from the total number.

Users should be alert to fluctuations between months when comparing monthly changes over time. For example, 1,385 charging devices were added to the network each month, during 2023, on average, but monthly increases ranged from the largest increase of 2,665 (between August and September), to the smallest increase of 570 charging devices (between January and February).

Device charging speeds

Charging devices can have several connectors of various output power ratings, measured in kilowatts (kW). This enables vehicles to be charged at different speeds.

This release series presents the number of charging devices in total as well as the number of charging devices rated 50kW or above. A device is included in this category if its most powerful connector is rated 50kW or above.

Until October 2023, we reported statistics on ‘rapid or above’ devices which included devices rated 25kW or above. From October 2023 onwards we changed to reporting devices rated 50kW or above to align with broader changes across the electric vehicle and charging industry. As a result, please interpret time series data with caution.

Further information and statistics

More electric vehicle charging infrastructure information and statistics can be found on our electric vehicle charging infrastructure statistics page.

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Contact details

Electric vehicle charging infrastructure statistics

Email [email protected]