EV Salary Sacrifice Market Review
Why leading employers are choosing The Electric Car Scheme
We know that choosing an electric car salary sacrifice provider is a big decision. The scheme you select will shape your employee experience, your sustainability progress and your ability to offer real value to your people.
That is why we created this EV Salary Sacrifice Market Review to help you compare salary sacrifice providers, understand the differences and make the right choice for your organisation with confidence.
At The Electric Car Scheme, our goal is simple: to make net zero the obvious choice for every business and every employee.
Let us help you find the right information.
Which of the following best describes you?
What is an EV Salary Sacrifice Car Scheme?
Electric car salary sacrifice is one of the most popular employee benefits, right now.
As the employer, you lease the car on behalf of your employee. They drive a new or used electric or hybrid car using part of their gross salary, which reduces their Income Tax and National Insurance and lowers their overall cost. For example, a Tesla Model 3 or Kia Niro EV can cost as little as £350 a month through The Electric Car Scheme - often saving employees 20-50% compared with leasing privately.
Employees will pay a small amount of company car tax (Benefit in Kind), which is set by the government and is fixed until 2029. And the great news that the government confirmed it will only increase marginally until then, which will still only be a fraction of the cost of a petrol or diesel car.
It’s a win for everyone. You can strengthen your employee benefits package and support your team’s journey to net zero, while your employees make huge savings on a car they’ll be proud to drive.
There’s no cost to set up, it’s simple to run, and it’s available to businesses of every size
- from growing scale-ups to large enterprises.
Provider Comparison:
EV Salary Sacrifice Market Overview
Ensure your salary sacrifice provider is built for enterprise scale. Assess their specialist focus, operational capacity, headcount, and the technology they use to support HR, Finance and employees. Enterprise ready providers are dedicated salary sacrifice specialists with robust systems, compliance processes and tools designed to run the scheme reliably for large workforces.
| Feature | The Electric Car Scheme | Octopus EV | Tusker | Leasing Companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Types of cars available | Electric and Hybrid (below 75g/km) only | Electric only | Electric, Hybrid, Petrol and Diesel | Electric, Hybrid, Petrol and Diesel |
| Complete Employer Protection (from Day 1) | Yes | No | No | No |
| Can the scheme offer the best prices? | Yes - we source funding from the UK's top leasing providers | Not guaranteed | Not guaranteed | Not guaranteed |
| Hundreds of used cars | Yes | No | No | No |
| Trustpilot Rating | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.6 | Varied |
| Salary Sacrifice for EV Charging | Yes - home, public and work | Yes (but limited to public charging only) | No | No |
| Retain Employer NI savings | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Employer Portal | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Support employee uptake of the scheme | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited - No information available |
| Lease duration | From 12 months | From 24 months | From 24 months | From 12 months |
| ISO Certification | Yes - ISO9001 and ISO14001 | No information available | No information available | No information avaialble |
| SSO Integrations | Yes - we are SSO ready | Yes | Yes | No information available |
| Payroll Integrations (API/ SFTP) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No information available |
| Partner with any employee benefits platform | Yes | No information available | No information available | No information available |
| Salary sacrifice specialist support | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Information collated is based on what’s available on a provider’s website. Data collated in December 2025.
Selecting the right EV salary sacrifice provider requires careful assessment across pricing, operational readiness, compliance and employee impact. We recognise this can be a complex review process, and our team is here to support you. Speak with an expert at The Electric Car Scheme to explore your requirements in more detail - you can book a call here.
Why Implement an EV Salary Sacrifice Scheme?
As we look ahead to the next five years, many employers are rethinking how to enhance their benefits offering. With budgets under pressure, salary sacrifice benefits present an opportunity for employers to save on employer national insurance, it’s simple to run, and it helps employees save thousands on the cars they love.
Our recent survey of over 250 senior HR professionals found that 83% of companies plan to introduce an electric car salary sacrifice scheme within the next 12 months. The Electric Car Scheme makes that transition effortless - combining the best prices available, Complete Employer Protection and a trusted 5-star service that thousands of employers already rely on.
As sustainability climbs higher on every corporate agenda, electric car salary sacrifice is fast becoming an essential benefit. Research shows that an employer’s environmental policies are increasingly key to attracting and retaining top talent. Deloitte data highlights that two in ten Gen Z and Millennial employees have already changed jobs to better align with their environmental values.
Younger generations want their work to reflect their values. Now is the time to act - to show leadership, reward your people, and help make net zero the obvious choice for everyone in your business.
How Our Prices Compare to the Other EV Salary Sacrifice Providers
Other salary sacrifice providers work with a single leasing partner or a limited panel. This approach can simplify pricing but may mean employees only see rates from one source rather than a broader view of the market.
The Electric Car Scheme works with a wide range of leading UK leasing partners and brings those rates together through one simple pricing engine. Vehicles are compared on a like for like basis across lease term, mileage, maintenance and insurance, giving employees a clear and accurate view of available options.
This same approach is applied to both new and used cars, creating consistent and fair pricing across the full range. By comparing multiple partners in one place, employees see prices that reflect the wider market rather than a single supplier. In many cases, prices are competitive even before salary sacrifice tax savings are applied, which can help drive stronger engagement across larger teams.
Employees can get personalised quotes in seconds through our online tool. If you would like us to review a selection of car prices for your organisation, our Business Development team is ready to help. Click here to book a call and we’ll provide all the details you need.
How Our Early Termination Compares to
Other EV Salary Sacrifice Providers
One of the most common considerations when introducing a salary sacrifice car scheme is the level of financial risk an employer takes on. Some providers offer limited or conditional protection, which can mean employers remain exposed in certain circumstances.
The higher the headcount, the greater the importance of having such comprehensive protection.
For example, in a redundancy situation, an employer may be responsible for early termination fees of up to 50% of the remaining lease payments. Across multiple vehicles, this can quickly amount to tens of thousands of pounds, making risk management an important factor when selecting a provider.
The Electric Car Scheme offers Complete Employer Protection, designed to significantly reduce financial exposure while keeping the scheme simple for employees. This level of protection becomes increasingly important as schemes scale across larger teams, helping employers offer a benefit with confidence.
* In the event that your employee does not pay fees when they resign you are still covered from Day 1 with The Electric Car Scheme’s Complete Employer Protection.
If you would like to discuss our market leading Complete Employer Protection you can book a call with our team here. Also if you want to download an explainer with all the details you can click here.
| Event | The Electric Car Scheme | Octopus EV | Tusker |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resignation | From 3 months* | From 3 months | From 3 months |
| Redundancy | Yes from Day 1 | From 3 months | From 3 months |
| Dismissal | Yes from Day 1 | From 3 months | From 3 months |
| Parental Leave | Yes from Day 1 | Yes | From 3 months |
| Long Term Sickness | Yes from Day 1 | Yes | From 3 months |
| Loss of Licence | Yes from Day 1 | Yes | Yes |
| Death | Yes from Day 1 | Yes | Yes |
| Excess to pay | None | None | None |
| Caps or limits | None | Yes (10 cars or 10% pa) | None |
| If employee doesn't pay for ET fees | Yes | No | From 3 months |
| If employee doesn't pay for damage | Yes | No | No |
With The Electric Car Scheme you are in Full Control of Employer Class 1A NIC Savings
With a salary sacrifice car scheme, both employees and employers can benefit from National Insurance savings. The way those employer savings are handled, however, can vary between providers.
With The Electric Car Scheme, employers retain full control of their Employer Class 1A National Insurance savings. By default, these savings remain with the employer and for many organisations can amount to thousands of pounds each year. Employers can choose to retain all of these savings or reinvest some or all of them into the scheme to improve employee affordability, while keeping the benefit cost neutral overall.
For employees, the cost of the car is taken from gross salary before tax. This reduces Income Tax and employee National Insurance, allowing electric vehicles to be accessed at a significantly lower cost than equivalent private leasing.
Employers also benefit from reduced Employer National Insurance contributions as gross salaries across the workforce decrease. This creates a direct financial benefit alongside the delivery of a valued employee benefit. While some providers take a more prescriptive approach to how Employer National Insurance savings are applied, The Electric Car Scheme allows employers to decide how these savings are used, based on what best suits their organisation.
Used EV Salary Sacrifice Makes Cars More Affordable for Everyone
Used electric cars play an increasingly important role in salary sacrifice schemes, particularly for organisations with a wide range of salaries. Research shows that 97% of senior HR professionals underestimate how much employees value used electric cars. At The Electric Car Scheme, more than half of employees who take a car choose a used model.
Used EVs offer strong value compared to new vehicles and can make a salary sacrifice scheme accessible to a much broader group of employees, especially those in the 20% tax band. For larger organisations, this can mean the benefit works for the majority of the workforce rather than a small subset.
Through partnerships with the UK’s largest leasing companies, The Electric Car Scheme provides access to a wide range of used electric cars and hybrids. Every vehicle is inspected, prepared and valeted before delivery, giving employees confidence in the quality of the car they receive. Many vehicles are available for quick delivery, helping employees get on the road sooner.
The Electric Car Scheme offers one of the widest selections of used EVs available in the UK, often including recent models at prices typically 30-40% lower than new. Hundreds of vehicles are available at any given time, giving employees meaningful choice alongside affordability.
Some providers, including Octopus and Tusker, primarily manage their own used vehicle fleets. This can limit availability and model choice at certain points in time. By sourcing used vehicles across the wider leasing market, The Electric Car Scheme is able to offer greater variety, faster delivery and competitive pricing, while keeping the experience simple for employers.
Hybrid Salary Sacrifice Broadens the
Appeal of your Scheme
Fully electric cars remain the most tax efficient and sustainable option within salary sacrifice. However, many employers choose to include plug in hybrids as a transitional step for employees who are not yet ready to go fully electric. The way hybrids are handled can vary between providers.
The Electric Car Scheme gives employers full control over whether plug in hybrids are included. Hybrids can be switched on or off at any time, allowing organisations to shape the benefit in line with their sustainability goals, workforce needs and stage of transition. This flexibility makes it easier to broaden access to the scheme without changing setup or administration.
For employees, plug in hybrids can be a practical option, particularly for those who cover longer distances or want to reduce emissions while retaining driving flexibility. They can help increase participation by appealing to a wider group of employees and supporting those who are early in their move towards electric vehicles.
From a tax perspective, plug in hybrids emitting up to 75 g per km of CO₂ qualify for significantly lower Benefit in Kind rates than petrol or diesel cars, typically between 8% and 12% compared with 25% to 37% for traditional vehicles. This enables meaningful monthly savings through salary sacrifice while contributing to lower emissions and progress against ESG objectives. Importantly, hybrids create no additional administrative work and sit within the same salary sacrifice structure and reporting process as electric vehicles.
Approaches to hybrids differ across the market. Octopus does not currently include hybrids within its salary sacrifice scheme. Tusker offers hybrids, although this typically includes all hybrid models, including those that may be less favourable from a salary sacrifice or tax efficiency perspective. By giving employers the ability to control inclusion, The Electric Car Scheme allows organisations to strike the right balance between flexibility, affordability and sustainability.
Technology That Makes Running your EV Salary Sacrifice Scheme Simple
The Electric Car Scheme is built to fit seamlessly into how your business already works. Whether you use a leading benefits platform, a custom HR system or a standalone payroll provider, our technology connects smoothly to keep everything running efficiently.
We can integrate with all major benefits platforms and every payroll system, using API or SFTP connections for secure, automated data transfer and scheme management. This removes the need for manual uploads, double entry or missed deductions, and saves your HR and payroll teams valuable time.
Why is this important:
Employee facing integrations allow prospective drivers in your business to log in through Single Sign On from their benefits platform. This makes it quick and intuitive to browse cars, generate quotes and manage orders as part of your existing benefits package. It also avoids the need for separate sites or benefits hosted in multiple locations.
For administrators, the Employer Portal brings everything together in one place, from approvals and payroll reporting to real time dashboards that show uptake, savings and carbon impact.
Our technology is designed to make salary sacrifice simple to run and easy to scale. It reduces administrative effort while increasing visibility and control, which is essential for companies with large workforces.
EV Charging Salary Sacrifice is Key to a Successful EV Scheme
Salary sacrifice schemes typically focus on the cost of the vehicle itself, while charging costs are often managed separately by employees. This can limit the overall savings available and add complexity to the experience.
With The Electric Car Scheme, employees can salary sacrifice the cost of their electric vehicle charging through The Charge Scheme, including charging at home, at work and on the go. This can enable employees to save around £500 to £1,000 a year on their charging costs, depending on usage and tax position. The scheme is simple to set up and is managed entirely through payroll, either via automated feeds or within existing payroll input processes, with no additional administrative work required for employers.
By salary sacrificing charging costs, employees can save between 20% and 50% on energy over the course of their lease, depending on their tax band. This helps ensure that savings extend beyond the car itself and reflect the real cost of driving electric.
Employees can also include a home charge point and installation within their salary sacrifice package and receive a recommended overnight EV tariff. When combined, these elements can deliver up to £4,405 in total value per employee across the lease term, creating meaningful savings at scale.
Approaches to charging vary across the market. The Electric Car Scheme offers one of the most comprehensive salary sacrifice charging solutions available, allowing employees to salary sacrifice their full charging costs while also accessing savings on energy, home charge point installation and EV tariffs, all within a single, joined up benefit.
Working with Government to Expand Salary Sacrifice to Other Clean Technologies
At The Electric Car Scheme, we are leading the next phase of salary sacrifice in the UK. As part of a broader initiative, we are working closely with the government to extend salary sacrifice beyond electric cars to include clean technologies on the Energy Saving Materials (ESM) list such as home solar, battery storage and heat pumps.
Together with more than 30 industry leaders, we have urged the Chancellor to include these technologies in the forthcoming Warm Homes Plan. The Renewable Energy Association (REA) and many others agree this change would be a major step toward decarbonising the UK affordably and efficiently, supporting the government’s Clean Power 2030 target.
Salary sacrifice could also complement existing initiatives such as the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS). We are clear that this expansion should not replace the BUS, but rather work alongside it, giving households more choice and ensuring that support remains flexible, fair and great value for money.
This is something we are leading as a business. If your organisation partners with The Electric Car Scheme, your employees will be among the first to access these additional benefits as soon as legislation allows.
None of our competitors, including Octopus and Tusker, are currently advancing this work or engaging directly with the government in the same way.
Thousands of Leading Employers are Already Offering The Electric Car Scheme
With thousands of companies already offering The Electric Car Scheme, employers across every sector are using salary sacrifice to reward their people, cut carbon and strengthen their benefits packages - all at no cost to their business. Our clients include some of the UK’s most recognisable brands, from Holland & Barrett and Dreams to Curve, JustEat, XE, and Eurostar. Each has launched the scheme to engage employees, reduce emissions and deliver meaningful savings across their workforce.
Having an all-inclusive package for our colleagues. that covers the car, term, servicing, breakdown, insurance, and a home charge point is truly excellent.
Abi Griffin
Head of Experience at Dreams
The partnership with The Electric Car Scheme is a great incentive, not only in the savings generated through using salary sacrifice.
Nigel Chambers
Chief of Staff at XE.com
| Feature | The Electric Car Scheme | Octopus EV | Tusker |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trustpilot rating | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.6 |
| Google reviews | 4.6 | 4.4 | 4.3 |
| Dedicated Customer Success Manager | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Case studies from UK employers | Yes | Limited public examples | Limited public examples |
| B Corp Certified | Yes | No | No |
| ISO9001 Certified | Yes | Info not publicly available | Info not publicly available |
| ISO14001 Certified | Yes | Info not publicly available | Info not publicly available |
Don’t Just Take Our Word for it. Read Our Recent Trustpilot Reviews
We’re always thinking about how we can help our colleagues be more eco-friendly. Colleagues can lower their environmental impact while reducing their own cost.
Richard Mason
Head of ESG at Holland & Barrett
Trusted service, verified by the best
At The Electric Car Scheme, we combine award-winning service with independently verified standards. We’re proud to be the only B Corp certified salary sacrifice provider in the UK - meeting the highest standards of social and environmental impact - and are now ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 accredited for our quality and environmental management systems.
This means our customers can rely on a service that’s not only trusted, but held to the most rigorous global benchmarks for excellence and sustainability.
Our track record speaks for itself:
B Corp Certified EV salary sacrifice car scheme
4.8 stars Trustpilot and 4.6 stars Google ratings from thousands of happy customers
A dedicated Customer Success Manager for every employer
We can embed someone in your business to help manage any administration.
Expert support across EV, payroll and HR
Detailed case studies from brands such as Holland & Barrett, Dreams, and Curve
How Does The Electric Car Scheme Compare to Other Leading Providers?
Ready to book a call to learn more about The Electric Car Scheme? Click here to schedule a time.
If you are considering other EV salary sacrifice providers beyond those outlined here, we encourage you to assess how well each option can support a large and diverse workforce. The Electric Car Scheme is designed specifically for employers that need a scalable, low risk and operationally seamless provider. Our focus on enterprise readiness, market wide vehicle access, strong protection and advanced technology makes us a reliable partner for organisations that require certainty, control and high quality service at scale.