Data Centres Are Creating Hundreds of Thousands of Skilled-Trade Jobs, but Few Are Filling Them

October 1 (IT Home) — On 29 September local time, Fortune magazine reported that data centres have now become one of the focal points of the AI debate. Critics worry that building data centres at scale brings problems for communities such as water consumption, electricity use and noise. At the same time, however, data centres are generating enormous demand for labour, and skilled trades in particular are short of workers.

Tim Chadwick, who heads Google’s data centre operations in Ohio and Indiana, wrote in a blog post: “Right now there are hundreds of thousands of skilled-trade jobs open across the United States, waiting for someone to fill them. They include senior electricians, pipefitting foremen and project managers — occupations with fast-growing demand that also offer stable, long-term income.”

A report by JLL, citing estimates from the US Department of Education, says that by 2030 about 2.1 million skilled-trade jobs in the United States may go unfilled. For workers, that also means more and more career paths no longer require a four-year university degree: vocational training, apprenticeships and on-the-job practice can equally build professional skills and open the door to these industries.

With thousands of data centres entering the planning stage, labour shortages are expected to worsen. McKinsey estimates that to keep up with growth in computing demand, the world will need to invest US$6.7 trillion (about 45 trillion yuan at current exchange rates) in data centres by 2030.

The jobs created by the AI infrastructure boom have also drawn the attention of several technology industry executives.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, long an opponent of “AI doomerism,” believes the world stands on the eve of “the largest infrastructure build-out in human history,” which will create “a huge number of jobs.”

In a 2025 interview with Channel 4 News in the UK, Huang said: “Every economy is going to see a boom in skilled trades. It has to double, double and double again every year.”

Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, likewise believes that the United States has long regarded skilled trades as inferior to white-collar careers, and that this has become “a social problem.” “We really need to make high-school students understand that this is a very good career path. Frankly, compared with some other occupations, it may also be less at risk from AI.”

She also said skilled technicians can earn US$80,000 to US$90,000 a year (about 537,000 to 605,000 yuan at current exchange rates), “and if you work longer hours, you can earn even more.”

Even though several well-known CEOs are bullish about demand for skilled trades, attracting enough people into these industries remains difficult.

For decades, the US education system and labour market have placed more emphasis on entering a four-year university after high school, while investment in vocational education and technician training has been relatively insufficient — and has even long carried a negative label. As a result, many skilled trades face an ageing workforce while failing to recruit enough young people to take over, and struggle to train new workers to meet demand.

Working conditions themselves also make these jobs less attractive. Skilled trades are often physically demanding, involve long hours, and may require outdoor work in freezing cold or extreme heat. Construction is also largely project-based: when one project ends, workers often have to move to the next site, sometimes travelling across states or even across the United States.

For data centres, this problem is even more pronounced. A single data centre can create hundreds or even thousands of jobs during construction, but once it is completed and operating, the staff responsible for day-to-day maintenance quickly falls to a few dozen people.