How to start your own solar installation business

If you’re a qualified electrician thinking about specialising, or just curious how to become a solar panel installer with your own business behind it, there’s rarely been a better time to make the move.

Let’s take a look at what’s driving demand, and what it takes to get started.

Why solar’s growing in the UK

The numbers back up what’s happening on the ground. The UK solar market had a record-breaking year in 2025, with MCS-certified installations reaching 267,032, beating the 2011 record, set during the original Feed-in Tariff boom, by 31%. By the end of March 2026, the UK had passed 2 million solar installations in total.

It’s not just installations rising – it’s the businesses doing the installing, too. There are now over 2,500 solar panel installation businesses in the UK, growing at an average of 9.4% a year between 2020 and 2025. That’s a market with real room for new entrants, not one that’s already saturated. 

A few things are driving demand:

• It’s more affordable than it used to be. Installation costs have dropped significantly since 2010, thanks to grants, incentives, and cheaper manufacturing – putting solar within reach of far more homeowners and businesses.
• Energy costs are high. People are actively looking for ways to cut their electricity bills, and solar pays for itself over time.
• It’s a sustainable choice. More customers care about their carbon footprint, and solar’s one of the more visible ways to act on that.
• Customers can earn from what they don’t use. Through the Smart Export Guarantee, home and business owners get paid for excess electricity they feed back into the grid.
• Adoption is still climbing fast. More than 1.6 million homes in the UK now have solar panels, and that number keeps rising every year.

How to become a solar panel installer with your own business

Research the market first

Before anything else, look at demand in your area, who else is already operating there, and what the regulatory landscape looks like. This shapes everything else you do, from pricing to which customers you target first.

Get licensed and certified

You’ll need to register your business, take out public liability insurance, and get Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) accreditation – the industry standard certification for solar installers in the UK. Skipping this isn’t really an option; most customers and grant schemes expect to see it.

Write a business plan

A business plan forces you to work out your marketing approach, your financial projections, and a realistic timeline for hitting your goals, rather than figuring it out as you go.

Sort your funding

You’ll need capital for tools, equipment, wages, and materials before the money starts coming back in. Banks, investors and government funding programmes are all worth exploring, depending on how much you need and how quickly.

Build a team you trust

A solar installation business runs on skilled people – electricians, engineers, and often sales staff who understand the industry. Investing in training early means your team stays current as the technology and regulations shift, which they do fairly often in this space.

What separates a business that lasts from one that doesn’t

Getting started is the easy part. Here’s what tends to matter once you’re trading.

Customer satisfaction comes first

Solar customers are usually making a significant investment, and they’ll talk about their experience – good or bad. Following up after installation, and acting on feedback, does more for your reputation than any advert will.

Staying current matters more here than in most trades

Solar technology moves quickly. Keeping up with industry publications and what other installers are doing isn’t optional if you want to stay competitive on price and capability.

Safety can’t be an afterthought

Solar installation carries risk if safety protocols slip. Sending your team digital checklists to confirm they’ve followed safety procedures before starting a job is a simple way to keep standards consistent, without relying on memory.

Where the admin starts catching up with you

Here’s the part that catches a lot of new solar businesses out: the work itself might be going well, but the admin behind it – scheduling installs, managing leads, quoting, invoicing, tracking who’s where – becomes challenging as you take on more jobs and more staff.

This is usually the point where a spreadsheet and a paper diary stop being enough. Field service management software brings scheduling, lead tracking, quoting, invoicing and route planning into one system, so growth doesn’t mean drowning in admin the moment you take on your fourth or fifth installer.

For a business that’s mobile by nature – installers on roofs, not at desks – that also means being able to manage everything from a phone or tablet, with real-time visibility on where your team actually is and how a job’s progressing.

Getting the operational side right from day one

A solar business that’s efficient behind the scenes is one that can take on the demand that’s out there right now, rather than turning work away because the admin can’t keep up.

Eworks’ field service management software is built to support this – job scheduling, digital job sheets, quoting, invoicing and route planning in one place, whether you’re managing one installer or twenty.

If you’re building your solar installation business and want a system that grows with you, book a demo or try it for free.