GoKawiilThe AI data center buildout is expected to support employment and future job creation, but these facilities may create far fewer permanent roles than the industry suggests, according to data from an economic think tank.
The U.K. government and industry leaders have greenlit the construction of new data centers using widely cited figures from tech trade association techUK, Verdant said Wednesday. It added that those figures overstate the number of new, permanent jobs these sites will actually create.
Verdant, which advocated for tighter controls on data center development, estimates that existing U.K. data centers support about 4,400 direct jobs, compared with techUK's estimate of 24,300. For planned developments, Verdant projects about 10,400 permanent operational jobs by 2035 — roughly a quarter of techUK's forecast of 40,200 roles.
TechUK's estimate is based on assumed staffing and capacity at a typical data center, producing a figure of 8.5 jobs per megawatt. Verdant said this estimate is too high because it is based on older, smaller data centers that need more staff.
It instead determined that the capacity-weighted average is closer to 1.2 operational jobs per megawatt. The think tank said it came to that calculation after examining 20 planned U.K. data centers, using planning applications and public staffing figures.
Newer, larger sites will be more automated and need fewer permanent workers, according to Verdant. It also said techUK's wider estimate includes jobs outside the sites, such as contractors and supply-chain workers.
It also said that data centers create fewer jobs per unit of electricity than other major U.K. installations such as steelworks, car plants, hospitals, or schools, with some creating hundreds or thousands more jobs per megawatt.
In comments shared with CNBC, techUK said its estimates were based on published methodology using industry data and standard economic impact assessment techniques.