Plumbers
Most plumbers are one bad month away from a quiet diary, and the reason is almost always the same: every job is a stranger. The fix is not more adverts, it is a handful of accounts that call you without searching.
How EV charger installers find work beyond the driveway
Every qualified electrician within twenty miles can fit a home charger. Very few of them can survey a car park, model the load and phase an installation across sixteen bays.
Where the work actually comes from
Domestic charge point installation grew fast and commoditised faster. Most homeowners buy through the car dealer, the energy supplier or the charger manufacturer, all of whom route the job to an approved installer network — which means the customer relationship is not yours and the price is set by whoever is paying you.
Commercial charging is where the market is still short of capable installers. Workplace charging, fleet depots, dealerships, hotels, retail parks, gyms and destination charging all involve multiple units, load assessment, possibly a supply upgrade, groundwork, and back-office systems for billing and access. It is engineering rather than a fitting job, and it is priced accordingly.
There is also a growing maintenance market that barely existed a few years ago. Installed units fail, firmware needs updating, sites expand, and businesses running charging as a service need somebody responsible for uptime. That is recurring revenue attached to hardware you may not even have installed.
The channels that produce work
- Manufacturer and energy supplier installer networks. For domestic volume, this is the channel. The application process and accreditation requirements are tedious, which is exactly why being on the list is worth something — the jobs arrive pre-sold and pre-financed. Treat it as base load rather than as the business.
- Workplace and fleet charging, sold as an infrastructure project. Any business with a car park and staff who drive is a candidate, and any business with vans is a fleet charging prospect. The pitch involves a site survey, a load assessment, a phased plan and grant advice where schemes exist. The competition is far thinner than in domestic work and the jobs are an order of magnitude larger.
- Car dealerships, hotels and destination sites. Dealerships need chargers for stock and customers, hotels and restaurants use charging to attract visitors, and retail parks treat it as a footfall driver. These buyers think in terms of customer experience and revenue, not cost per socket, and they usually need several units plus payment and access systems.
- Property managers and developers, where charging is now specified. New residential and commercial developments increasingly require charging provision, and managed blocks face resident demand for it. Getting to developers and block managers early puts you into a specification covering an entire building rather than one driveway.
The accounts worth approaching
Every trade on this site has a commercial customer base sitting behind the public one — businesses that buy repeatedly, book in advance and pay on account. They are also, conveniently, a list: each one has a website, a phone number and usually a named contact. These are the ones worth a deliberate approach.
| Who | Why they repeat |
|---|---|
| Businesses with vehicle fleets | Depot charging is an infrastructure project with load assessment, multiple units and a maintenance contract behind it. |
| Car dealerships and vehicle rental firms | They need customer and stock charging, they replace and expand it as the fleet changes, and they influence every driver who buys from them. |
| Hotels, restaurants and retail parks | Destination charging as a footfall and revenue play, usually several units with payment systems attached. |
| Property developers and block management firms | Charging provision specified across whole developments and retrofitted into managed car parks. |
| Offices, business parks and facilities managers | Workplace charging for staff and visitors, often phased over several years as demand grows. |
Searches that build that list
Each of these is a business type run against the towns and cities you cover. One search per line, every location at once.
- logistics companies, courier firms, businesses with fleets
- car dealerships, vehicle rental companies
- hotels, restaurants, retail parks, leisure centres
- property developers, block management companies
- business parks, facilities management, coworking spaces
What quietly empties the pipeline
- Competing purely on domestic install price. It is the most crowded corner of the market and the customer was delivered to you by somebody else who takes the margin.
- Not offering maintenance. Installed hardware fails and firmware needs managing, and a business running charging for customers needs an uptime contract more than it needs the original install.
- Ignoring grant and funding schemes. Where they exist they are the single biggest lever on a commercial buyer's decision, and being the installer who knows the paperwork wins jobs outright.
- Quoting commercial sites without a proper load assessment. Discovering the supply will not carry the plan after quoting is how installers lose money and reputation on the same job.
Questions
01 How do I get commercial EV charging installation work?
Target businesses by what is in their car park rather than by their industry. Fleets, dealerships, hotels, retail parks, gyms, offices and developments all need multi-unit charging, and they buy it as infrastructure — with a site survey, a load assessment, a phased plan and often a funding application. Build the list, approach the facilities or operations lead, and lead with the survey rather than a price. The job sizes are far larger than domestic work and the number of installers who can genuinely handle them is small.
02 Is domestic EV charger installation still profitable?
It can be, but mostly as volume through manufacturer and supplier networks rather than as direct-to-consumer work. Margins have compressed as more electricians qualified, and the customer usually arrives already committed via their car purchase or energy provider. Treat it as steady base load that keeps engineers busy, and build the commercial and maintenance sides for margin — that is where the shortage of capable installers still is.
03 What qualifications and accreditations actually matter?
The ones that get you onto approved installer lists and let you sign off commercial work: current electrical competence, the relevant EV installation qualification, and manufacturer accreditations for the hardware you fit. For commercial sites, evidence of load assessment capability and public liability cover at commercial levels matter as much as the technical certificates, because facilities managers cannot appoint a contractor who fails their procurement check.
04 Should I offer charging maintenance contracts?
Yes, and it is currently the most under-served part of this market. A business offering charging to customers or drivers cannot have units out of service, and most of the installed base was fitted by companies who never came back. Maintenance is recurring revenue, it does not depend on new installation demand, and it gives you a route into sites where somebody else did the original work.
Selling to ev charger installers instead?
EV installers buy hardware from manufacturers, load management and back-office platforms, test equipment, vehicles, insurance and training. The commercial end of the sector has strong websites and LinkedIn presence, while smaller installers appear mainly on Maps — combining sources gives noticeably better coverage in this one.
Other trades
Electricians
Electricians have an advantage almost no other trade has: a large slice of their market is legally required to hire them on a schedule. Most never build a business around it.
HVAC contractors
This trade has a structural problem no amount of advertising solves: demand arrives in two spikes and disappears in between. The businesses that survive it sell maintenance, not repairs.
Roofers
Roofing has the worst reputation of any trade and the highest-value jobs in domestic work. Both facts point at the same strategy: stop competing with door-knockers and start selling to people who buy roofs on purpose.
The commercial half is a list
The accounts above all publish their contact details. GoLeadX searches a business type across every town you cover, crawls each site for the address, verifies it, and hands you a CSV. A search takes about a minute.
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