A September 2026 analysis by environmental thinktank Verdant reveals that planned UK datacentres will directly employ only 10,400 permanent workers, representing just 25% of the 40,000 jobs projected by industry lobby group TechUK. While the UK government defends the rapid rollout of AI datacentres as critical national infrastructure vital for national sovereignty and defence, critics and environmental groups raise concerns over their high energy and water consumption.
UK datacentre job creation projections
- ▪An analysis by environmental thinktank Verdant of 20 UK datacentre projects found that existing facilities directly created fewer than 4,400 jobs, representing about 8.6 jobs per megawatt of energy consumed.
- ▪Industry lobby group TechUK defended its estimates that the UK datacentre industry supports 43,500 jobs and could support 40,000 more by 2035, stating its figures are built on standard economic impact assessment techniques.
- ▪Environmental thinktank Verdant predicted in September 2026 that planned UK datacentres will directly employ 10,400 workers, compared to the 40,000 jobs projected by industry lobby group TechUK.
Datacentre energy consumption intensity
- ▪Environmental thinktank Verdant compared the 8.6 jobs per megawatt created by UK datacentres with about 400 jobs in a car plant and over 3,600 in a hospital or health facility.
- ▪Environmental thinktank Verdant argued that future UK datacentre projects currently at the planning stage are on a larger scale and may create as few as 1.6 permanent positions per megawatt of power.
Water resource demands
- ▪Green Party leader Zack Polanski stated in September 2026 that planned UK datacentres are set to receive priority access to water despite England and Wales facing drought conditions.
- ▪Public and political concerns in the UK have grown regarding the high water and energy demands required to operate rapid rollouts of artificial intelligence datacentres.
Government defence of datacentre rollout
- ▪The UK government has classified artificial intelligence datacentres as critical national infrastructure to accelerate the planning and development process.
- ▪The UK government rejected a September 2026 report by environmental thinktank Verdant, calling its jobs-per-megawatt metric misleading and stating it discounts the wider economic value of computing capacity.
Public opposition to datacentres
- ▪Demonstrators in London protested against redevelopment plans for the 10-acre Truman Brewery site in Brick Lane, which include the construction of a datacentre.
- ▪The Green Party in England has called for a moratorium on building datacentres, while public protests against rapid datacentre development have occurred in Scotland.
National sovereignty rationale
- ▪UK Artificial Intelligence Minister Kanishka Narayan argued in August 2026 that building sovereign datacentre capacity is essential for national defence and preventing foreign billionaires from owning critical infrastructure.
- ▪The UK government stated that pausing datacentre development would send investment abroad and leave Britain dependent on overseas computing for processing sensitive health and defence data.
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