City & Guilds spearheads drive to train EV charging workforce on World EV Day 2023

On World EV day, City & Guilds is gearing up to help the UK meet its Electric Vehicle (EV) targets by training and reskilling a new generation of electrical engineers to install EV charge points and fill skills gaps in the workforce.

In May 2023, electric vehicles made up approximately 17% of new car sales, but following the introduction of the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate in 2024, City & Guilds expects they will make up around 80% of new car sales and 70% of new van sales by 2030, rising to 100% of both by 2035. This means there will be approximately 11 million EVs on the road by 2030, up from 760,000 today. 

There are currently only around 40,000 public charge points in the UK.  To meet the levels of EV charging required to achieve a national EV transition, the Government has announced a target of 300,000 publicly available chargers by 2030. This will require year-on-year growth of 30% in the number of chargers installed to hit the target. 

City & Guilds has made significant strides to support this agenda in the UK over the past 12 months, by developing a range of new industry partnerships, products and training courses to support a workforce capable of installing and maintaining EV chargers on a national scale.

To help meet this training challenge, while improving industry standards, City & Guilds is actively collaborating with employers such as Shell, to deliver a new portfolio of EV charging installation courses and qualifications that set exceptional, market-leading safety standards.

Andy Moss, Chief Customer Officer at City & Guilds, said:

“As we come together to mark World EV Day, we should both celebrate the progress we are making in our transition to a cleaner, greener economy and also recognise the dramatic shift in skills and labour markets needed to underpin the move to a low carbon future.

Nowhere is that shift more apparent right now than in the area of EV charging, with an additional 250,000 publicly installed chargers needed in the UK as our transport infrastructure looks to keep pace with demand.

At City & Guilds we’re committed to playing our part in preparing a highly skilled EV charging workforce for the Net Zero transition, by helping to fill workforce skills gaps, driving up training and safety standards, and ensuring consistent quality assurance and compliance across the sector.”

Read more about how City & Guilds is setting a new industry standard in skills for electric vehicle charging installation here.