WCS for education institutions

What: £2,000 per socket, 75% of cost.

Cap: 40 sockets per institution. Multi-academy trusts apply per institution.

Who: State-funded schools, colleges, nurseries, academies. UK-wide; Channel Islands and Isle of Man excluded.

When: Apply before installation. Voucher valid 180 days. Grant ends 31 March 2027.

Pre-1 April 2026 vouchers: £2,500 rate retained if the voucher is redeemed by 30 September 2026.

OZEV runs this as a separate strand of the Workplace Charging Scheme because state-funded education has unusual characteristics: parking is mostly used by staff and visitors, capital budgets are tightly controlled, and many sites already have unused electrical capacity from sports halls and kitchens that are no longer running on the same loads. The higher rate exists to make standalone installs possible without crowding out other capital projects.

State-funded education institutions in any of the four UK nations:

• England and Wales: institutions with a URN on the Get Information about Schools register.
• Northern Ireland: institutions on the Department of Education Institution Search.
• Scotland: institutions with a SEED reference on Parent Zone.

Independent and fee-paying schools don’t qualify for this scheme. They apply for the standard WCS at £500 per socket. Multi-academy trusts can apply per institution they run, with separate applications for each.

Two practical points:

• Email domain check. Your application has to come from an email address on the institution’s domain. Personal accounts will be rejected.
• Staff and Fleets exclusion. You can’t apply for this grant on a chargepoint that already received funding under the (now closed) EV infrastructure grant for staff and fleets.

Plenty of schools have considered making their chargers available to the public outside school hours, either for community use, parent pickup, or as a small revenue stream.

That’s allowed under WCS rules, but the moment you charge for use, the chargers fall under the Public Charge Point Regulations 2023: contactless payment, pricing display, 99% reliability requirement, open-data feeds. It’s a significantly more demanding compliance regime, so worth being aware of.

1. Apply on gov.uk. You’ll need your institution reference (URN / SEED / DE Institution number) and an email on the institution domain.
2. Voucher issued (5 working days target) with 180-day validity.
3. Get a quote from an OZEV-authorised installer, specifying a model from the OZEV-approved commercial list.
4. Install your chargepoints.
5. Installer redeems the voucher via the same WCS portal as standard WCS.