The Jobs Mirage of Data Centres: Minimal employment, maximal resource demand

Credit: Erik Mclean via Unsplash

How the industry's employment case for the UK data centre buildout falls apart under scrutiny – and the resource cost it obscures.

The UK government and data centre industry have promoted a rapid expansion of data centres as essential for job creation, frequently citing techUK's claim of over 40,000 new jobs by 2035. This briefing challenges that figure, showing it isn't grounded in actual employment data from new facilities but is instead an extrapolation from older aggregate figures that don't hold up.

Drawing on a database of planned data centres and making extensive use of public records including planning applications, statements by government ministers, and industry press releases, we provide a more realistic estimate for UK data centre employment. 

TechUK uses a jobs per megawatt (jobs/MW) formula to estimate the numbers of jobs to be created by data centres, which is used widely in planning decisions. Following techUK’s method, of assuming each additional megawatt of processing power consistently creates new jobs, we re-estimate this jobs/MW multiplier.

The findings are stark: existing UK data centres support roughly 4,400 direct jobs, not the 24,300 claimed by industry. Applying the same evidence to planned developments suggests around 10,400 total direct jobs nationally - about a quarter of the industry's projected 40,200.

Comparing data centres to other major UK installations sharpens the picture further. Data centres create dramatically fewer jobs per unit of electricity demand than steelworks, car plants, hospitals, or schools - all of which generate hundreds or thousands of jobs per megawatt. In a country facing worsening supply constraints on energy and water, as well as the increasing carbon emissions, any jobs case for data centres collapses. There may be other reasons to prioritise them, but it cannot plausibly be argued that jobs are the primary reason to build yet more data centres. 

The briefing concludes that while data centres may offer other benefits, employment cannot credibly be the primary justification for continued rapid build-out. We recommend:

• a pause on construction until we have a national framework for data centres that can demonstrate clear need and use-cases;

• a wider public discussion of the build-out is fundamental;

• and firmer policy on access to constrained electricity and water supplies should be built into the planning and consent process.