Company details

HEADCOUNT

100-499

ORG TYPE

Corporate

SECTOR

Travel & Hospitality

WEBSITE

http://www.zest.uk.com/

About the company

Zest (Zest Eco Ltd) is a UK EV charge point operator focused on funding, installing, operating and maintaining public and commercial EV charging infrastructure. Zest positions the work around making charging accessible for people who cannot charge at home, including on-street, rapid, and hub-based charging. Public materials emphasise social value work alongside core operations, including school outreach and work experience programmes. Zest also highlights external accreditations such as B Corp and Great Place to Work-related awards.

Locations and presence

Zest lists Leeds as the headquarters and operates nationally, with field operations supporting charge point uptime across the UK. Hiring covers both office-based functions (finance, platform) and operational roles (field service engineering).

Palpable Score

62.4

/ 100

Zest looks reasonably early-career-friendly through accessible support roles, structured work experience placements, and visible outreach into schools and colleges. The overall score is capped by limited published pay ranges, and only partial public evidence on consistent early-career progression beyond a small number of internal stories and mixed review signals.

Pillar 1: Early-career access

Score

12.0

/ 20

The company lists roles like Accounts Assistant and Cloud Support Engineer alongside operational roles, which can be reachable earlier in a career than “head of” hiring.
Zest does not show a steady stream of explicitly 0–3 year roles (for example “Graduate”, “Associate”, “Junior”) across multiple functions on the careers page at the same time.
The company runs structured work experience placements (including school programmes and a sixth form placement with induction, tasks, and a final presentation), which creates a real entry ramp even when junior jobs are limited.

Pillar 2: Hiring fairness and transparency

Score

11.8

/ 20

The company routes applications through a consistent “Apply now” flow from the careers page, which is better than fragmented email-only hiring.
Zest does not publish salary ranges on the careers listings, which makes early-career decision-making harder and limits transparency.
The company provides high-level role summaries publicly, but the deeper “find out more” documents were not accessible from the careers page during this review, which limits what can be verified about selection stages and expectations.

Pillar 3: Learning and support

Score

14.5

/ 20

The company describes a corporate induction and mentor-supported placement structure in its work experience write-up, including daily tasks, workshops, and role exposure.
Zest includes an internal progression story on the careers page (Marketing Executive to specialist to manager), which is a concrete signal of learning translating into responsibility.
The company talks about “continuous growth and learning” in careers messaging, but role-by-role support mechanics (buddying, 1:1 cadence, probation goals) are not clearly laid out in the public job summaries.

Pillar 4: Pay fairness and stability

Score

12.3

/ 20

The company states Living Wage Employer accreditation and frames jobs as “fair-wage” roles, which is a positive baseline signal for early-career pay.
Zest does not publish salary ranges for the current openings on the careers page, which caps the score even without negative evidence.
The company has mixed pay transparency sentiment in available reviews, including praise for benefits and flexibility alongside requests for clearer salary review communication.

Pillar 5: Early-career outcomes

Score

11.8

/ 20

The company includes at least one detailed internal progression example on the careers page, which is stronger than generic “growth” claims.
Zest has public hiring scale signals (for example growth to over 110 employees within the first two years, and an active careers page with multiple openings), but this is not the same as published promotion or retention metrics.
The company’s LinkedIn footprint and third-party review pages provide only partial outcome evidence, and Zest does not publish apprenticeship conversions, time-to-promotion, or 12–24 month retention data, which limits confidence in early-career outcomes.