Today we are publishing a report on employment and jobs reviewing publicly available figures globally for data centre employment including audited reports related to government funding schemes and other data from independent sources.
This report got a huge amount of coverage across UK news outlets
- Here is a long read with lots of analysis in the Herald.
- STV, the Independent, The National, The Times (see below), Express, and many other places
Read the Report
Employment and Data Centres: APRS Report
This paper compares the job creation claims of developers planning hyperscale data centres in Scotland with data gathered from actual figures from data centres globally and a new analysis of a data set from Virginia (USA) relating to job creation across various sectors in their economy. It includes a review of the job creation claims of proposed data centres in Scotland.
Dr Kat Jones, Director of APRS said
“It’s about time the hyperscale data centre developers were called out on their ludicrously inflated job projections. Data centres famously employ extremely few people, and have enormous environmental impacts, so we should expect more scrutiny of exactly what benefits hyperscale AI data centres would bring to Scotland.
“We have found that data centres tend to employ far fewer than a hundred staff, usually between 20 and 50 but we are being told that the proposed hyperscale data centres suggest will each create thousands of jobs.
“Developers and the UK Government seem to be taking the actual estimate of jobs, adding temporary construction and indirect employment, and then assume that each of these jobs create up to 6 additional jobs. This is the only way we think it would be possible come up with these preposterous figures.”
Our study looks at employment figures reported from data centres globally, finding that most data centres employ around 20-50 people, with by far the most jobs, 1000- 2000, onsite during a temporary construction period which usually lasts 12-18 months.
APRS analysed a long term data set from Virginia, US, home to the highest density of data centres in the world, which details investments across all the sectors in the economy, and the jobs created. This data was chosen as it represents the most mature market for hyperscale data centres in the world and therefore is most representative of what is in store for Scotland.
The Virginia data shows that every job created from data centre investment over the past decade has cost $33 million. APRS compared this with other sectors and found it orders of magnitude less effective at job creation than all other sectors. One of the most efficient sectors for jobs creation was ‘Professional, Scientific and Technical Services’ at a cost of $27,000 per job.
The report shows, not only the small number of jobs created by data centres, but the adverse knock-on impact they can have on other sectors as they monopolise energy, scarce components and land.
The UK Government announced that a new AI Growth Zone, in Lanarkshire, comprising a 500MW data centre, would create 3400 new jobs, including 1800 in the construction phase and 800 ‘high paying’ jobs. However APRS are concerned that the UK Government is not estimating jobs accurately. Their 2024 announcement of a £10billion AI Growth Zone in Northumberland claimed it would support 4,000 jobs, but later clarification revealed that this total included 1,200 construction roles and 2,700 indirect and induced jobs. Freedom of information requests showed that, in the estimates for employment Northumberland council had estimated one direct role in the data centre would support between five and seven additional jobs in the wider economy.
Kat Jones, Director of APRS said:
“The fact that £1.5billion investment from US AI tech giant CoreWeave into, what is now proposed as Scotland’s AI growth zone, was announced on the day of Trump’s State visit to the UK tells you all you need to know about who benefits from this deal.”
“If the UK Government really wanted to create tech employment in Scotland, and benefits across our whole knowledge sector, they would ditch the hyperscale AI data centres, and invest in a proper research-scale supercomputer and academic collaborations, like that at Edinburgh University, which has the largest publicly-funded data centre in the UK.
“The developers and the government need to stop using hugely inflated jobs estimates to justify these hyperscale data centres. They will have to find a more plausible reason to legitimise the sheer quantities of energy, land and water that will be diverted from the Scottish economy at large, to the purpose training US big tech’s AI models.”
Additional Information
Quote from the UK Government in response to the report
“A UK Government spokesperson said: “This report fundamentally misrepresents how jobs are counted for major infrastructure projects. We have never claimed that thousands of people will work inside a data centre day to day. Our figures include construction, supply chain and wider jobs across the economy, which are real roles that bring real benefits to local communities.
“AI data centres are enabling infrastructure, like energy networks or transport. Judging them solely on permanent on-site headcount ignores the investment, capability and job opportunities they unlock. The alternative is to send that growth and those jobs overseas, while buying back the compute from abroad.”
Written Parliamentary Question asked in the Commons, Westminster, February 2026
Dame Chi Onwurah, Labour, Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how many projected jobs for each AI Growth Zone are (a) tied to building and construction of data centres, (b) permanent on-site operational jobs in data centres, (c) data-centre roles that can be done remotely either (i) within the UK or (ii) overseas and (d) other jobs that are expected to be created indirectly in the area.
Kanishka Narayan, Labour, Vale of Glamorgan
Answered on 16 February 2026
Through AI Growth Zones (AIGZs), we aim to crowd-in tens of billions of pounds in private investment and drive growth, with AIGZs announced so far expected to create over 15,000 jobs.
AIGZs are designed to accelerate data‑centre build‑out and attract substantial private investment, creating construction roles, permanent operational jobs, and wider indirect employment through supply‑chain growth and skills pathways. Each AI Growth Zone will also receive £5 million to support local AI adoption and upskilling, helping ensure communities benefit directly from new opportunities.
Five AI Growth Zones have been designated to date, all expected to contribute to regional regeneration and the UK’s long‑term compute capacity. We do not make specific assumptions about the nature or geographical nature of jobs indirectly related to AI Growth Zones..
Urgent: Can you help fund our work?
We are a tiny charity with just three part time staff and need funding to support our work and to employ a professional planner to help us assist communities to oppose data centres in their area.
- to keep a public database up to date of the applications coming in
- to offer bespoke advice to communities working on objecting to data centres near them
- to write example Objections for each development being planned and to submit Objections from APRS and to encourage other NGOs to Object
- to set up a map of sites being planned
- to bring together other NGOs to also object to the centres and coordinate out work in the area of planning campaigning
- to deliver training/webinars for communities and NGOs and to write guidance for objecting to data centers
- to advise on changes to NPF4 and Scottish Government policy on data centres
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