UK datacentres may deliver just a quarter of the jobs the industry promised
Thinktank Verdant says planned UK datacentres will support about 10,400 permanent jobs, not the 40,000-plus that techUK and ministers have cited.
What happened: UK environmental thinktank Verdant published an analysis challenging the jobs figures used to justify Britain's datacentre boom. It estimates existing sites directly support fewer than 4,400 permanent jobs, and that all currently planned projects will add up to about 10,400 permanent jobs by 2035 - roughly a quarter of the 40,000-plus figure industry group techUK has given ministers. Verdant built its numbers from planning applications, company accounts and staffing data across 20 projects, plus international comparisons.
Why it matters: Government and industry have used the promise of large-scale job creation, alongside a national security case, to justify labelling datacentres critical infrastructure and speeding up planning approval, even as the sites draw huge amounts of electricity and water during a summer of drought. If Verdant's lower numbers hold up, the jobs argument for rushing through so many giant sites looks far weaker than officials have suggested, while the resource costs stay exactly the same.
How the disputed math works: TechUK's forecast assumes about 8.5 jobs per megawatt of computing capacity, a figure Verdant says comes from older, smaller, more staff-heavy facilities. Verdant instead calculates a capacity-weighted average of roughly 1.2 to 1.6 permanent jobs per megawatt for newer, larger, more automated sites. For comparison, it says a hospital supports over 3,600 jobs per megawatt and a car plant around 400 - a comparison the government calls misleading and says confuses electricity capacity with actual power use.
The pushback and what happens next: TechUK says Verdant's sample is too small and ignores contractor and supply-chain jobs tied to the sector. The government rejected the jobs-per-megawatt metric outright and pointed to the sovereignty and security case for building compute capacity in Britain. Verdant wants a pause on new approvals until ministers set a clearer national framework - a demand echoed by the Green party's call for a moratorium and by protests already seen in Scotland over rushed projects.