Electrical Review: Britain's Long-Established Magazine for the Electrical Industry

Electrical Review is one of the longest-lived titles in British technical publishing, a magazine and website for the electrical industry that traces its first publication to 1872. Based in London, with offices listed at 27 Clements Lane in the City, the title has followed the electrical sector from the age of telegraphy and early electric lighting through to today's debates about renewable generation, electric vehicle charging and the security of the national grid. Few trade publications anywhere can claim a continuous conversation with their industry that stretches across three different centuries.

That longevity is central to how Electrical Review presents itself. When the magazine marked its 150th anniversary, it did so not simply as a celebration of its own survival, but as a survey of the inventions and systems that have shaped modern life. For engineers, contractors, manufacturers and specifiers who work with electrical power every day, the title functions as both a news service and a record of an industry that underpins almost every other sector of the economy.

Overview

Electrical Review covers the UK electrical industry for a professional readership. Its subject matter ranges from power generation and distribution to the equipment installed in commercial and industrial buildings, and from the tools used by working electricians to the training and apprenticeship routes that bring new entrants into the trade. The magazine appears in print as a periodic issue — recent years have seen spring, summer and autumn editions, alongside themed issues — and is supported by a continuously updated website carrying daily news.

The title sits within a wider family of business media activity. Its 2024 media pack was issued through SJP Business Media, and its editorial team works alongside the sister title Data Centre Review, reflecting the growing overlap between conventional electrical engineering and the power-hungry world of digital infrastructure. That overlap is a useful illustration of where the electrical industry now finds itself: once concerned mainly with generation, cables and switchgear, it is now equally concerned with data, resilience and decarbonisation.

History and Founding

Electrical Review was first published in 1872. Early volumes appeared under the combined name The Telegraphic Journal and Electrical Review, a title that captures the priorities of the electrical world in the 1870s, when telegraphy was the dominant commercial application of electrical science and electric lighting was only beginning to emerge. Surviving nineteenth-century issues describe the publication as the oldest weekly electrical paper, published every Friday and sold through newsagents across town and country.

Those early issues were produced from Paternoster Row in London, then the heart of the British publishing trade, by the proprietors H. Alabaster, Gatehouse & Co. The magazine was positioned as the recognised medium of the electrical trades, carrying technical discussion alongside commercial intelligence at a time when the industry itself was still being formed. As electrical engineering professionalised, separated itself from telegraphy and expanded into power generation, traction, telephony and domestic supply, Electrical Review expanded its coverage with it.

Publisher and Ownership

In its modern form, Electrical Review is published in London by SJP Business Media, the company named in its recent media packs and in the contact details for its editorial and advertising staff. The magazine's stated address, 27 Clements Lane, London EC4N 7AE, places it in the City of London, close to the financial and commercial audiences whose buildings, infrastructure and energy decisions generate much of the industry's work.

Within that structure, editorial and commercial responsibilities are clearly divided. The media pack lists a group account director for advertising alongside the editor and contributing editor, a typical arrangement for a controlled-circulation business title whose print issues are supported by advertising from manufacturers, distributors and service providers across the electrical supply chain. The close working relationship with Data Centre Review — the two titles have shared editors and contributors — also reflects a publishing model in which specialist audiences are served by small, knowledgeable editorial teams working across related brands.

Editorial Content and Sections

The range of subjects set out in Electrical Review's media pack gives a clear map of its editorial territory. Listed coverage areas include power protection, renewables, smart buildings, sustainability, test and measurement, tools and workwear, and training and apprenticeships. Around those standing themes, the website carries news about grid connections, renewable energy auctions, onshore wind policy, shore power for ports, wireless electric vehicle charging and the cybersecurity of energy infrastructure.

That mix is deliberate. A working electrical contractor needs practical coverage of testing equipment, tools and training. A consulting engineer or facilities professional needs to understand smart building systems and power protection. A senior manager in generation or distribution needs policy and investment news, such as funding for major interconnector and grid projects. Electrical Review attempts to hold those layers together in a single title, moving between product-level detail and industry-level analysis, and between technical explanation and straightforward reporting of who is building, buying and regulating what.

The 150th Anniversary

The magazine's sesquicentenary became a major editorial project. Electrical Review announced in September 2022 that it would commemorate its 150th anniversary that December with a special edition, and the anniversary issue followed in January 2023. Running to more than 100 pages, it looked back at important electrical inventions of the previous century and a half — from electric lighting to the telephone — while also looking forward to technologies that might shape the industry's next phase.

The anniversary year also extended beyond print. The magazine trailed a special edition of its Powered On podcast as part of the celebrations, illustrating how a title founded in the telegraph age now reaches its audience through audio and digital channels as well as the printed page. Anniversaries of this kind matter for trade titles because their archives become part of the industry's own memory; Electrical Review used its milestone to emphasise continuity — the same publication that reported the arrival of electric light was now reporting on a power system being rebuilt around renewables and electrified transport.

Notable Editors and Contributors

Jordan O'Brien took over as editor of Electrical Review ahead of the anniversary year, succeeding Claire Fletcher, who had led the publication through the pandemic period. Announcing the appointment in September 2021, the magazine noted that O'Brien was already a regular contributor to the title and had worked as a technology journalist for almost a decade. Fletcher moved her focus to Data Centre Review, where she was succeeded as editor by Kayleigh Hutchins, who has also served as Electrical Review's contributing editor.

In his statement on taking the role, O'Brien described the magazine's storied position in the industry, noting that prominent historical figures including Nikola Tesla had contributed to its pages over the years. Whether or not every modern reader would use the same language, the point captures something real about nineteenth-century electrical publishing: the leading journals of the day were forums in which inventors, engineers and companies argued out the direction of a new technology in public. Electrical Review's long archive places it squarely in that tradition.

Audience and Readership

Electrical Review is written for people who design, install, maintain, manufacture for or manage electrical systems. That includes electrical engineers and contractors, but also the wider chain of specifiers, wholesalers, facilities managers, energy professionals and manufacturers' representatives whose decisions determine which equipment is bought and how it is used. Its self-description as a long-standing go-to source for the industry reflects that breadth: it is not a consumer title about gadgets, nor an academic journal, but a trade publication intended to be read as part of the working week.

The audience also explains the magazine's tone and format. News is reported quickly and briefly online, while print issues allow longer features on themes such as sustainability, power protection and training. Coverage of apprenticeships and workforce issues sits alongside high-level grid news because the same industry that worries about multi-billion-pound transmission funding also worries about whether it can recruit and train enough electricians to do the work that funding creates.

Print and Digital Editions

Print remains part of the offer, with back issues from recent years — including the January/February, March/April, May/June, July/August and September/October issues of 2022, quarterly-style editions through 2023 and spring, summer and autumn editions in 2024 — made available to download from the magazine's website. The 150th Anniversary edition is listed among them as a standalone item, underlining its status as a collectable record of the title's history.

Digitally, the website organises coverage by news and topic areas, carries newsletter editorial and opinion, and hosts the Powered On podcast, which was originally trailed as being hosted by Claire Fletcher and Jordan O'Brien. Newsletters, social discussion and community invitations form part of the current digital offer described on the site's about page, alongside opportunities for readers to contribute articles on trends and developments in the industry. For a publication founded when the telegraph was cutting-edge communications technology, the move into podcasts and newsletters is less a break with tradition than a continuation of it.

Recent Developments

Recent coverage shows the magazine tracking the practical consequences of the energy transition for its readers. Stories in its current news feed include funding for the Eastern Green Link 1 subsea project, a record UK renewable energy auction, the Shetland Islands gaining a connection to the GB grid as a new wind farm opened, shore power construction at the Port of Aberdeen, and plans by manufacturers and energy companies for new clean technology hubs and electric vehicle charging networks. It has also reported research on using artificial intelligence to help protect offshore wind farms from cyberattack.

Those subjects would have been recognisable in structure, if not in detail, to the magazine's Victorian editors: new generation technology, new networks to carry power, new demands from transport, and new risks to manage. What has changed is the scale and the policy context, with net zero targets now framing decisions that were once driven mainly by capacity and cost. Electrical Review's recent editorial places the electrical contractor and engineer at the centre of that transition, as the people expected to install and maintain the systems on which decarbonisation depends.

Place in the Industry

Electrical Review's significance rests on three things: its age, its breadth and its continuity of audience. Age alone does not make a trade magazine useful, but a title that has reported an industry since 1872 accumulates authority, an archive and a readership habit that newer launches struggle to replicate. Its breadth — from tools and workwear to grid-scale investment — reflects the reality that the electrical industry is a single ecosystem, in which a change in generation policy eventually becomes a change in the work arriving at a contractor's door.

As the UK power system continues to change, with more renewable generation, more electric vehicles, more heat electrification and more digital control, the need for a publication that translates those shifts for working electrical professionals is unlikely to diminish. Electrical Review enters its next phase with the same basic job it had in the nineteenth century: to tell the electrical industry what has happened, what it means, and what is coming next.