Operators struggle to overcome ongoing staff and skills shortage

To reduce the impact of staff shortages, data centers operators often use short-term tactics, such as spending more on employee retention and poaching trained candidates from other data centers. In many cases, these strategies will fail to offset the inevitable aging out of experienced staff. Despite the urgency, many companies are neither investing the resources to increase longer-term retention of current staff and development of new staff, nor are they expanding their search to include under-utilized talent pools. Regions with a more mature workforce will likely be hit hardest by staffing shortages.

The Uptime Institute Data Center Staffing Survey 2023, conducted online in August and September 2023, had more than 400 end-user respondents. This report highlights some of the findings.