Almost a quarter of data center staff could retire over the next decade - so who will be taking over?

Research finds almost a quarter of data center workforce are set to retire in the next 5 to 10 years, potentially leaving a considerable knowledge and experience gap.

Almost a quarter of data center staff could retire over the next decade - so who will be taking over? “Well, Michael used to do that...”

• Data center operators in the UK, Ireland, and Nordic countries are expected to lose 23% of their workforce to retirement in the next 10 years
• 10% of the businesses asked expect over 40% of their employees to retire
• The survey has raised the prospect of introducing apprenticeships and mentoring into the data center industry

Survey findings

A survey of 300 “senior decision-makers” in the data center industry has found that a notable chunk of their workforce is expected to retire in the next 5 to 10 years.

Research from Onnec has revealed that UK, Ireland, and Nordic data centers will need between 18 and 25% of their roles replacing due to retirement.

With the data center industry expanding due to AI, the research has surfaced a huge concern: are data center operators prepared for a huge loss of experience and knowledge?

Furthermore, will steps be taken within the industry to ensure knowledge is passed on as roles are replaced?

Ageing workforce

At a time when vacant roles in specialized industries seem increasingly difficult to fill, Onnec’s research makes for particularly concerning reading.

Region by region, across the UK, Ireland, and Nordic countries, around 6,340 workers, directly employed by data center companies, are set to retire between 2031 and 2036.

In the UK, 18.74% of the workforce is expected to take retirement, representing 4,4554 roles according to Onnec. Irish operators foresee losing 24.43% of the workforce, equivalent to filling an additional 813 roles. In the Nordic region, 28% will probably retire from the industry, requiring 974 roles to be replaced.

Workforce training

The biggest challenge facing data centers, then, isn’t from hardware and power, but from its ageing workforce. Losing almost 25% of the knowledge and experience is going to be difficult, which means the businesses running the data centers need to take action now.

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"Data centers run on people, not just power,” says Matt Salter, Global Head of Data Centres at Onnec. “Everyone's talking about GPUs and gigawatts, but somebody has to build and run all that capacity, and operators are already telling us they can't find the staff. Now they expect almost a quarter of their workforce to retire within a decade."

"These are the engineers who've spent years learning how these environments work, the people behind every rack and every 2am callout. Lose them faster than you can replace them and there aren't enough hands to build what's planned quickly and safely."

With knowledge, insights, and hands-on experience likely to spend the next 20 years traveling, fishing, or working through a Steam library, those organizations need to take action now.

Salter has some suggestions: "You can't retrain a workforce overnight. The industry needs to invest in apprenticeships, mentoring and clear career paths now, so experienced engineers are training their successors years before they walk out the door."

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Christian Cawley has extensive experience as a writer and editor in consumer electronics, IT and entertainment media. He has contributed to TechRadar since 2017 and has been published in Computer Weekly, Linux Format, ComputerActive, and other publications. He currently heads up the team at smart home website Matter Alpha, and writes about retro gaming at Gaming Retro.

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