UK datacentres will create just 25% of jobs predicted by tech sector, analysis finds
Facilities likely to employ 10,400 workers, compared with 40,000 in industry estimates, thinktank says Datacentres in the UK will create just a quarter of the jobs predicted by the tech sector, while consuming vast amounts of energy, according to new research. Environmental thinktank Verdant predicts that all the datacentres currently planned are likely to directly employ 10,400 workers –…
A new analysis from environmental thinktank Verdant suggests that UK datacentres will create only 25% of the jobs predicted by the tech sector. The organization predicts that all planned datacentres will directly employ just 10,400 workers, compared to the 40,000 jobs cited in industry projections by TechUK. Labour has defended the rapid rollout of AI datacentres, despite public skepticism about their water and energy demands.
The government has also echoed TechUK's claims about job creation. Verdant's analysis, based on 20 projects with publicly available staffing data, shows that existing datacentres have created fewer than 4,400 jobs – about 8.6 jobs per megawatt of energy consumed. Future projects, which are larger in scale, may create even fewer jobs, potentially as few as 1.6 permanent positions per megawatt.
The thinktank argues that AI and related technologies have great potential, but the significant real costs to local communities and climate ambitions must be considered. TechUK, however, maintains that its estimates of 43,500 current jobs and potential 40,000 more by 2035 are based on a transparent methodology using industry data and standard economic impact assessment techniques.
Written by urgent.news from Guardian Business's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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