- New research estimates planned datacentres will create 10,400 permanent jobs.
- TechUK estimates the sector could support more than 40,000 additional jobs by 2035.
- The government says datacentres are also vital for AI, national security and computing sovereignty.
Britain is racing to build the infrastructure needed for the artificial intelligence boom. But there is a growing question over what the country will actually get in return.
New research by environmental thinktank Verdant estimates that all currently planned UK datacentres will directly employ around 10,400 workers.
That is less than a quarter of the more than 40,000 additional jobs the technology industry has previously projected.
The difference matters because the government has repeatedly highlighted employment and economic growth as part of the case for rapidly expanding Britain's datacentre capacity.
But if the facilities require huge amounts of electricity and infrastructure while employing relatively few people, why does Britain want so many of them?
The jobs argument does not add up for everyone
Verdant analysed 20 datacentre projects for which staffing information was publicly available through planning applications, company accounts, press releases and international comparisons.
It estimates that datacentres already operating in Britain directly employ fewer than 4,400 people.
That works out at around 8.6 jobs for every megawatt of energy capacity they use.
The comparison becomes more striking when placed alongside other industries. Verdant estimates around 400 jobs per megawatt in a car plant and more than 3,600 in a hospital or health facility.
The thinktank says future datacentres are likely to be even less labour-intensive because many of the planned facilities are significantly larger. Its modelling suggests some could create as few as 1.6 permanent jobs per megawatt.
The figures focus on permanent employees needed to operate and maintain the facilities. They do not include the much larger number of temporary construction jobs created while the sites are being built.
James Meadway, co-director of Verdant, argues that Britain is being pushed into a rapid datacentre expansion on weak economic grounds.
The government strongly disputes that interpretation.
A government spokesperson said the jobs-per-megawatt comparison was misleading because it did not capture the wider economic value of computing infrastructure or distinguish properly between electricity capacity and actual consumption.
TechUK also defended its estimates, saying its projection of more than 40,000 additional jobs by 2035 was based on established economic impact assessment methods and industry data.
That leaves a bigger question: perhaps the value of datacentres is not primarily the number of people working inside them.
Britain wants the computing power, not just the jobs
The government's argument is increasingly about what datacentres allow the wider economy and state to do.
AI systems require enormous computing capacity. The government wants Britain to have enough of that infrastructure domestically rather than relying entirely on facilities overseas.
Labour has therefore classified AI datacentres as critical national infrastructure and is seeking to accelerate planning for new projects.
AI minister Kanishka Narayan has argued that Britain needs sovereign computing capacity, particularly because the country wants stronger control over technology that could affect defence, healthcare and other sensitive areas.
From that perspective, the economic calculation is different.
A datacentre does not need to employ thousands of people to be considered strategically important. Its value could come from the computing power it provides to companies, researchers and government departments using AI.
That is the argument the government says Verdant's analysis overlooks.
But the infrastructure still comes with a physical cost.
Datacentres require substantial amounts of electricity, and some projects also raise concerns over water consumption. Those pressures are becoming more politically sensitive after Britain's record hot summer and continuing concerns about drought.
That has fuelled opposition in some communities and prompted the Green Party in England to call for a moratorium on new datacentre construction.
The government says slowing the expansion would risk sending investment and jobs overseas while leaving Britain dependent on foreign computing infrastructure.
So what is Britain really building?
The dispute over jobs reveals two very different ways of looking at the datacentre boom.
For critics, Britain risks dedicating scarce power, water and land to facilities that employ surprisingly few people.
For the government and technology industry, the direct workforce is only one measure of their value. The bigger prize is the computing capacity that could support Britain's AI industry and reduce dependence on overseas infrastructure.
That distinction could become increasingly important as the datacentre pipeline grows.
If the facilities do create the tens of thousands of jobs promised by the technology industry, the economic case becomes easier to make.
If they do not, Britain will need to justify the infrastructure on something else.
And that may be the real reason behind the race to build them: the government is not necessarily building datacentres because they employ lots of people. It is building them because it believes Britain cannot afford not to have the computing power.
