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UK planned data centres set to create about a quarter of expected jobs
A Verdant analysis estimates 10,400 direct permanent jobs from currently planned sites, vs TechUK’s projection of more than 40,000.
Labour has defended the rapid rollout of AI data centres in the UK amid public skepticism about their costs, including demand for water and energy, as a new analysis challenges how many jobs the projects will actually create.
According to an analysis by environmental thinktank Verdant, all UK data centres currently planned would directly employ about 10,400 workers, around 25% of the more than 40,000 jobs cited in projections by industry lobby group TechUK.
Verdant’s assessment is based on 20 projects with publicly available staffing data, including from planning applications, company accounts and press releases, and it also argues that data centres already built have created fewer than 4,400 jobs, about 8.6 jobs per megawatt of energy consumed.
The thinktank’s co-director James Meadway said the government and industry are being pushed into a fast buildout on what he called flimsy economic grounds, adding that future projects at the planning stage could be less job-intensive, possibly creating as few as 1.6 permanent positions per megawatt, the Guardian Business reports.