Dundee named the best city for UK EV drivers in terms of public charging

The Scottish city of Dundee is the best in the UK for electric car drivers in terms of public charging provision, reports Recharge Renewable.

The home EV charging specialists added the public charging network in 30 of the UK’s biggest cities based on size, chargers per person, rapid charging, and network growth over the first quarter (Q1) of 2026. The numbers are taken from the Department for Transport, which based the figures on population rather than vehicle numbers.

Dundee, with its population of 150,000, took top spot with 473 public chargers per 100,000 residents, almost three times the UK’s national average of 172. Its rapid provision is even further ahead – 119 rapid chargers per 100,000 people is three times the national rate, and more than four times more than London’s.

Scottish cities took three of the top four places. Edinburgh pairs more than 1,000 chargers with one of the fastest-growing networks in the study, adding 75 chargers over the first three months of 2026, while Glasgow has more public chargers than any other Scottish city at 1,177 sites. Aberdeen completes Scotland’s strong showing in eighth place.

London finished third. The capital’s 30,909 chargers accounted for about a quarter of the entire UK network, while its density of 340 chargers per 100,000 people is beaten only by Coventry and Dundee. Rapid charging, however, is the capital’s weak spot: 27 rapid chargers per 100,000 people ranks 21st of the 30 cities, and it reflects a network built around slower on-street units. One London borough, Westminster, has 2,878 public chargers alone, more than any UK city outside the capital.

Once again, Coventry is the country’s charging capital per-person. Its 708 chargers per 100,000 people is more than double than London’s rate, and its total of 2,613 chargers is more than Birmingham’s despite the city having less than a third of Birmingham’s population.

Coventry City Council is extending its lead with four new residential charging hubs due in 2026/27 under the government’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) funding programme, which is backed by hundreds of millions of pounds dedicated to improving on-street charging. However, recent slower and a mid-table rapid network keep it fifth overall.

Sunderland is the surprise of the top 10. The north-east city ranks sixth thanks to above-average rapid provision, 50 rapid chargers per 100,000 people against a national figure of just under 40, and one of the fastest-growing networks in the country, with 67 chargers added over Q1 this year.

Liverpool is the fastest improver of all, adding 226 public chargers in three months, more than any other city in the study, including London, with Bristol next on 103. Milton Keynes shows the network can also move the other way: operators there removed or reclassified more chargers than they added over the quarter, although the city still has the second-best rapid provision in the country at 107 per 100,000 people.

Southampton was last of the 30 cities examined by Recharge Renewable. It has 171 public chargers, or 66 per 100,000 people, meaning table-topping Dundee has more than seven times as many chargers per head. Wolverhampton has the fewest chargers per person in the study at 65 per 100,000, Hull’s network shrank over the quarter, and Belfast sits near the bottom on every measure. Northern Ireland as a whole has 60 public chargers per 100,000 people, around a third of the UK average.

On the back of its findings, a specialist from Recharge Renewable commented: “Chargers per person is the number that matters most day to day, and it is worth checking before a house move as much as before a car purchase. A city with a big headline total can still leave whole neighbourhoods queueing, and a city with modest totals but strong rapid coverage can be an easier place to run an electric car than the raw count suggests.”