Luke Templer, CFO at charge point operator (CPO) Believ, has built his career around infrastructure, finance and scaling complex projects. As Believ continues to expand its public EV charging network across the UK, Luke plays a key role in ensuring the business has the investment, strategy and long-term vision needed to support the EV transition.
From the CPO’s landmark £300 million investment to the future consolidation of the charging market, Luke shares his thoughts on the opportunities and challenges facing the industry, why cleaner air for all remains at the heart of Believ’s mission, and why he thinks the economics of EVs will ultimately drive mass adoption.
Tell us a bit about your career, and how you found your way to Believ and the position of CFO at Believ’?
I joined KPMG after university in their transport advisory team, which is where I first moved into the infrastructure and transport space. After about four years, I transferred to Hong Kong, where I worked on a range of large-scale infrastructure projects.
When I returned to the UK, I joined a telecoms scale-up business that deployed infrastructure across the country, which gave me valuable experience in scaling and delivering nationwide networks. From there, I was approached by Liberty Global, a global converged communications business and Believ’s parent company, to initially work in Liberty’s central finance team, but things moved quickly. After a stint as Believ’s interim CFO initially, I was formally appointed in Autumn 2024.
How does your background as a BEeng in Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Management help your role today?
Interestingly, I never studied engineering because I specifically wanted to become an engineer. However, having that foundational knowledge helps me understand how a site works and how its designed and therefore what are the financial levers you can pull in to support that.
It also allows me to speak the same language as our technical and operational teams, which is important when balancing commercial and delivery considerations.
And can you tell us a bit more about what your role entails?
I believe that there are four key pillars to the finance function. The first is financial planning and analysis, which focuses on forecasting and understanding where the business is heading. The second is accounting and reporting, ensuring all regulatory and financial requirements are met.
The third pillar is corporate finance, making sure the business has the investment and backing needed to deliver its growth plans. Finally, there’s mergers and acquisitions, which is an area I spend a significant amount of time on.
The EV charging market is still highly fragmented, with well over a 100 CPOs across the UK. Over time, we expect there to be significant consolidation across the market, which creates opportunities for businesses that are well-positioned and strongly funded.
Alongside the financial responsibilities, there’s also the leadership side of the role, helping shape the direction of the business, communicating our strategy internally, and making sure people understand the journey we’re on – a journey I feel enormously invested in.
Why did you choose to work in the EV charging industry?
The thing I love most about what we’re doing at Believ is the mission around cleaner air for all.
For me, if you put the core argument of climate change to one side, this is fundamentally about creating healthier environments for people to live in. There’s a direct correlation between pollution from exhaust emissions and health conditions such as asthma and dementia, particularly for people living near high-traffic areas.
If we can help create an environment where people can move around without breathing in harmful emissions every day, that’s a genuinely worthwhile thing to dedicate your career to.
What’s one decision or project you’ve been especially proud of in your time at Believ?
Without question, it’s the £300 million investment facility we secured last year to install at least 30,000 public charge points across the UK.
Raising that amount was a huge team effort involving every department across the business, both shareholders, and more than 20 external companies and advisers. Helping coordinate that process – and successfully securing what was the one of the largest-ever investments for a CPO – is something I’m incredibly proud of.
The investment gives us the ability to deploy charging infrastructure at the scale the UK needs.
And one of the biggest barriers to EV adoption has always been confidence. Confidence that charging infrastructure will be available, reliable and accessible. By funding tens of thousands of additional public charge points, we can help remove that uncertainty for drivers.
It also allows us to invest long-term and ensure we’re building infrastructure that works for communities across the country, not just in the most commercially attractive locations.
You’ve spoken out on the VAT disparity facing drivers without off-street parking – how much is policy uncertainty still holding back both consumer adoption and investment decisions in public charging?
It’s difficult to put an exact figure on it, but policy inconsistency absolutely impacts consumer confidence.
You can clearly see periods where EV uptake accelerates or slows down depending on how consistent government messaging is around EVs. Whether it’s the continued VAT disparity between home and public charging, changes to the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate, or discussions around road pricing, mixed signals risk confusing consumers at exactly the moment the industry needs clarity and confidence.
Drivers without off-street parking are still paying significantly higher VAT rates to charge publicly than those able to charge at home, despite public charging being essential for the 35-40% of the UK that doesn’t have a driveway or access to at-home charging. Creating a fairer system would help reduce affordability concerns and give consumers greater confidence to switch.
How does your role support Believ’s mission to deliver cleaner air for all and why is it so important?
Many of the local authority projects we work on involve deploying thousands of charge points across local authorities, not just in affluent areas where the business case is strongest. My role is to make sure that, financially, we are making bids that are as socially equitable as possible, while also creating a sustainable business for the long term.
What do you see as the biggest difference between building EV infrastructure today versus where the market was 3–5 years ago?
The positive difference is that local authorities are now fully engaged in EV deployment. Programmes like Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) are helping accelerate rollout, and we’re seeing increasingly large-scale tenders coming to market. This level of public sector engagement simply wasn’t there several years ago.
At the same time, deployment is becoming more complex because there are not an infinite amount of parking spaces, and so the easiest locations have often already been identified. As the market matures, operators increasingly need to balance infrastructure rollout with wider parking and community considerations.
Looking ahead for the next year, and then next 5 years, what do you think the future looks like for CPOs?
I think the market will see a significant acceleration in charger deployment over the next five years, alongside major growth in EV adoption.
At the same time, the market itself will consolidate. Infrastructure markets naturally consolidate over time, and I expect the number of CPOs to reduce significantly as the sector matures. And I think this will generally be positive for the industry, as scale ultimately helps improve reliability, reduce costs and deliver better charging experiences for drivers.
What keeps you optimistic about the future of EV adoption in the UK?
I’ve never doubted the long-term future of EVs because, ultimately, economics wins at the end of the day.
People care about sustainability and doing the right thing environmentally, but most consumers still make decisions with their wallet. Increasingly the economics favour EVs through lower running costs, lower maintenance costs and stronger long-term value retention. That economic reality will continue to drive adoption, and the fact that people also feel they’re contributing to cleaner air and a healthier environment is an added benefit.
Do you drive an EV, and if so, what are your three favourite things about driving an EV?
I do, and I love driving mine! First, they’re incredibly quick – the acceleration is amazing. Second, they’re quiet and comfortable to drive. And third, they’re just simple. There’s no gearbox, no ignition and worries.
