The European data centre industry could see growth falter unless it addresses the issue of a huge labour and talent shortage, according to the latest research from Savills.
The company found that the growing ageing demographic of existing data centre workers coupled with the fact that many centres are located in remote and sometimes unappealing locations, could limit the sector’s ability to attract talent and impact on the ability to operate existing data centres and develop new ones.
This could lead to limited available data centre power capacity and a reduced development pipeline in Europe which in turn will impact both data centre occupiers and landlords.
Scott Newcombe, EMEA head of data centre advisory at Savills, said: “A lack of available talent could put pressure on rental growth due to the anticipated increase in data consumption, combined with a lack of supply. Data centre occupiers are faced with increasing costs as they try to attract and retain talent which could negatively affect profit margins. Landlords will be mostly impacted by higher development costs due to higher labour construction costs.”
Bram de Rijk, European research associate at Savills, added: “The established markets will grow the strongest, driven by the presence of existing talent and talent producing institutions. On a European level, Italy, Spain, and the Nordic countries, except for Norway, are forecast to see their international bandwidth usage increase by a minimum of 30% per year until 2029. However, the number of available data centre professionals is limited, and there is a lack of new talent for the sector currently coming out of universities in these markets.”
