Photo of Patrick Doyle
Credit: Patrick Doyle
PwC projects U.S. data center investment will hit $118.4B by 2027, up 116%. Deloitte shows data center job postings grew 64% vs 4% economy-wide, with electrical technician postings up 180%. Patrick Doyle argues the industry is pulling workers from restaurants and grocery stores into high-risk construction without adequate mentoring or safety culture. He advocates one-to-one mentoring for new hires, conversational safety analyses before each task, and protected stop-work authority.
The data center boom will be judged not only by how much infrastructure we build, but by whether the people building it return home safely. Major opportunities bring a rush for capital, market share, and industry leadership. Schedules tighten, hiring accelerates, and safety can be treated as an obstacle. From what I have seen in high-risk work environments, that is a costly mistake. Cutting corners can hurt people, stop projects, and consume the capital everyone was racing to protect.
The scale of the current buildout makes that risk difficult to ignore. PwC forecasted that annual U.S. investment in data center infrastructure will rise 116%, from $53.2 billion in 2024 to $118.4 billion in 2027. This is not a gradual expansion. It is an enormous amount of complicated physical work being compressed into a short period.
The workforce is being stretched just as quickly. Deloitte found that data center job postings for core roles grew 64% between 2023 and 2025, compared with 4% across the broader economy. Postings for electrical technicians climbed more than 180%. In Deloitte’s survey, 63% of data center executives identified skilled-labor shortages as their leading talent obstacle. The opportunity for workers is real, but so is the pressure to deploy people before they are prepared.
I have watched workers move from restaurants, grocery stores, and other settings into construction and energy jobs. Their experience has value, but the hazards are different. A person using a hand drill may not understand how it will react if it seizes. Someone new to night shifts may arrive exhausted because the body has not adjusted. Outdoor work introduces heat, cold, hydration, and other factors that can affect judgment.
New workers are not the problem. Employers are responsible for preparing them. A certificate earned in a day or two is not the same as competence, and orientation is not supervised experience. When demand outpaces the supply of qualified people, employers may shorten training, accept questionable credentials, or assume a new hire will learn on the job. On a complex data center site, that assumption can endanger everyone nearby.
The answer begins with controlled onboarding. I favor a short-service employee program pairing each new worker with an experienced journeyman or senior employee, ideally one-to-one for high-risk work. The mentor tracks progress and helps the employee understand both the task and the site. A program might last 90 days, six months, or longer. The duration matters less than demonstrated competence.
Preparation must also happen before each task. Job safety analyses and pre-job risk assessments should be conversations, not compliance paperwork. Teams should review what will happen, how they will work, what could change, and when they should stop. Rehearsal lets people visualize the task before tools, vehicles, and changing conditions enter the picture.
Most importantly, workers must know that stopping a job for safety will be supported. Too many people hesitate because they fear retaliation or believe they will be blamed for missing a deadline. Leaders create culture through what they reward. Reporting a hazard, asking a question, or declining to complete an unsafe task should be treated as responsible performance. If employees hear “see something, say something” during orientation but watch supervisors punish delay in the field, the real policy is obvious.
The data center industry has an unusual advantage. Its workforce is arriving from different trades and backgrounds, and the industry is still establishing its norms. It can define safe work as professional work from the beginning. That takes more than a seminar. It requires qualified supervisors, manageable spans of control, recurring coaching, and consistent expectations when deadlines are under pressure.
Some executives may still see those measures as extra time and expense. The business case points in the other direction. EY notes that shortages of skilled workers and specialized contractors are already contributing to higher costs and longer timelines, while construction delays can bring substantial financial penalties. An incident adds its own chain of consequences: an investigation, damaged equipment, lost production, absent qualified workers, legal exposure, and potentially a shutdown. A rushed decision intended to save one shift can jeopardize an entire schedule.
That discipline matters even more as investors question the scale and timing of AI infrastructure returns. A credible safety system can instead become evidence that a project is being managed for reliable delivery rather than a single rushed milestone.
Safety should therefore be presented to customers and investors as an operating capability. Developers should explain how they verify competence, mentor new hires, assess risk, protect stop-work authority, and learn from reported hazards. These systems protect people first while also supporting continuity, quality, and trust.
The data center boom is a historic opportunity, but speed alone will not make it a success. We can build an industry in which people are rushed into unfamiliar work and learn its hazards through injury, failure, and loss. Or we can build the training, supervision, and speaking-up culture at the same time as the facilities themselves. The infrastructure will be judged by what it enables. The industry should also be judged by whether the people who built it returned home safely.
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