More than two-thirds of the developers and operators in DCD Intelligence’s 2026 workforce survey say their data centre staffing sits below what their operations require, and nearly a third are running at under 80% of the level they need. The shortages are sharpest in facilities and physical infrastructure, power and cooling, and IT operations. Nearly half of respondents named a lack of technical knowledge among candidates as the biggest barrier to bringing new people in.
The survey drew 161 respondents in June, so it is best read as a well-timed snapshot. Its direction matches larger studies. Uptime Institute’s 2026 global survey, which gathered responses from more than 800 owners and operators, found more than half struggling to find qualified candidates, with staff turnover persisting and people often lured away by other data centre companies.
Data centre capacity is doubling faster than the workforce can grow
The pipeline is the other half of the picture. JLL expects nearly 100GW of new data centre capacity between 2026 and 2030, taking the global total from about 103GW to around 200GW. JLL has also described grid connection waits of around four years, which means developers plan power long before a site opens because the grid leaves them no choice. Workforce planning has no equivalent forcing mechanism. DCD Intelligence’s analysts traced the staffing gaps, inconsistent training and slow upskilling to the absence of consistent, deliberate systems for building talent. They argued that the operators best placed to benefit from this growth will be those that treat workforce development as core infrastructure.
That pressure now shows up in almost every market at once, which changes what geography means in a hiring plan. Turner & Townsend’s latest global construction survey covered 112 markets across 44 countries. More than 70% of them reported contractor capacity for data centre projects as tightening or already overstretched, and around 78% reported labour shortages of some kind. Every UK respondent reported shortages of qualified mechanical, electrical and plumbing workers. When neighbouring projects draw on the same local pool, an employer that hires only within commuting distance of its site is competing with everyone else nearby. Employers willing to relocate or rotate people widen the pool, and they take on a cost. In the AGC and NCCER survey of US contractors, travel and scheduling requirements were the third most cited reason new field hires left early, so mobility works when its terms are designed as carefully as the role.
Building a contingent bench for data centre construction labour shortages
Construction, fit-out and commissioning follow a project curve, and a permanent headcount sized for steady-state operation does not. Turner & Townsend found that labour availability has overtaken general material inflation as the main driver of construction cost increases, with shortages bringing longer recruitment periods, higher wages and less appetite among subcontractors to bid. Employers that treat contract and interim data centre specialists as an occasional fix are likely to keep paying that premium at the last minute. Those that plan a contingent bench alongside permanent hiring, with known people available for known phases, can absorb peaks without bidding for talent in the same week as everyone else.
DCD’s respondents are already looking sideways for people. They are drawing on adjacent technical infrastructure and utilities sectors, with telecoms in third place among cross-hire sources. Where fluid dynamics and power expertise are needed, they are turning to power and water utilities and to oil and gas. That sits alongside the finding on technical knowledge, and both can be true at once. Someone who has spent a career keeping a high-consequence system running in another sector may lack data centre-specific knowledge and still be a strong hire with the right onboarding. Employers who screen only for data centre job titles will reject people they could have trained, while those who screen for the underlying operating experience and budget time to teach the sector-specific layer draw from a much larger pool.
Training has to carry part of that load. Respondents told DCD they plan to expand education-based pathways such as apprenticeships, and the report calls for standardised onboarding and upskilling on AI and other new technologies. The AGC survey adds some realism, concluding that even significant new investment in training will take years to produce enough qualified workers. Uptime’s 2023 staffing survey found that about a third of data centre companies lacked hiring and training initiatives, and observed that poaching from competitors was failing to resolve shortages.
Why workforce planning needs to start at the procurement stage
The timing of workforce planning matters as much as its content. Among US contractors surveyed across all construction sectors, 42% said worker shortages had delayed projects, ahead of the 29% who cited longer lead times for electrical equipment. In many programmes, equipment is specified, ordered and tracked from the earliest stage, while labour remains a line to be filled once the schedule is set. Bringing workforce planning to the same stage as procurement means knowing which roles a project needs, in which months, and what the realistic supply looks like before the programme is committed.
Retention between project phases follows from all of this. The AGC survey found that 83% of firms see some turnover among new field employees in their first 90 days, and 30% of firms reporting on the effects of data centre projects said those projects had raised turnover. Uptime’s survey shows the same pattern on the operations side. A construction team released at practical completion, or a commissioning team finishing a handover with nothing lined up, becomes available to competitors the next day. Employers who can see their own pipeline can offer the next project before the current one ends, and that continuity is something a higher day rate from a neighbour cannot easily match.
Every gigawatt in JLL’s forecast needs a construction workforce first and an operating team afterwards. Thor specialises in data centre recruitment and mission-critical talent, and our consultants bring years of hands-on experience and a detailed knowledge of the data centre market. If you are looking for your next role or planning to expand a team, get in touch.
