When Boston Consulting Group updated its data centre forecast for New Zealand last month, the jobs number was the headline: about 5,000 roles tied to a potential 1-gigawatt build-out, up from a $70 billion estimate in February to $120 billion in economic activity this decade. For a country still working through an 11-year-high unemployment rate of 5.6 percent, that is a serious claim about where the next wave of well-paid work might come from.
This week, a competing count from the other side of the world argues numbers like that deserve a hard second look. The dispute is not academic if you are an 18-year-old choosing between a software degree and an electrical apprenticeship — the two estimates point at very different futures.
What BCG actually counted
BCG’s August report models a 1GW construction programme. Of the roughly 3,500 jobs at peak construction, it expects about 60 percent to be electrical and mechanical trades, with a further 21 percent in civil trades. Once facilities open, the report assumes about one ongoing role per megawatt — around 1,000 permanent jobs — taking the total near 5,000. BCG New Zealand’s Kelly Newton pointed to the country’s renewables, political stability and investor interest as its edge in capturing the global build.
The first tranche of those jobs is already real. Datagrid began earthworks at its 280MW Makarewa campus in Southland on 18 August, with HEB Construction on the horizontal works and Datagrid itself promising more than 1,200 construction jobs from its first stage. Contact Energy and CDC Data Centres are exploring a 250MW facility at Stratford in Taranaki. These are construction contracts with real crews, not projections.
The counter-count
On 9 September, the UK think tank Verdant published an analysis arguing the industry’s own jobs maths is inflated. Britain’s tech sector trade body techUK had estimated 8.5 operational jobs per megawatt, underpinning forecasts of 40,200 permanent roles by 2035. Verdant examined 20 planned UK data centres using planning applications and public staffing figures and concluded the realistic figure is closer to 1.2 jobs per megawatt — implying about 10,400 permanent jobs, roughly a quarter of the industry’s forecast. Its reasoning: modern hyperscale sites are bigger and more automated than the older facilities the per-megawatt ratios were drawn from.
techUK pushed back that its figures used “published methodology” and capture supply-chain work beyond the server halls, and a UK government spokesperson called the comparison “deeply misleading.” Verdant’s sample of 20 sites is small. Both things can be true: the ratio is contested, and nobody disputes that the operational headcount per megawatt of a modern AI data centre is small — The Economist noted BLS-type forecasts show utilities as the fastest-growing big sector while a single 1GW farm of facilities sustains only on the order of a thousand permanent staff.
Why the disagreement matters more in construction than operations
Read the two positions carefully and they converge on one point: the durable, labour-intensive phase of a data centre is building it. Verdant’s own analysis found UK data centres support far more construction employment than permanent jobs, and it did not dispute the building-phase numbers. Indeed Hiring Lab’s July analysis found US data centre job postings more than doubled in two years while overall postings fell about 12 percent, and The Economist counted roughly 320,000 jobs added above trend since 2023 across five build-out industries from electrical contracting to equipment manufacturing. LinkedIn’s estimate — nearly half a million American data-centre jobs created between 2023 and 2025 — and Indeed’s finding that data centre installation and maintenance roles advertise wages about 40 percent above comparable work elsewhere, both predate Verdant’s intervention and concern mostly the build-and-run workforce, not the industry-forecast models Verdant criticised.
The global trades squeeze is real, too. Randstad’s analysis of 50 million job postings found demand for robotics technicians up 107 percent, HVAC engineers up 67 percent and industrial automation technicians up 51 percent since 2022, with hiring an electrician now taking longer than hiring a desk-based professional. Jensen Huang told Carnegie Mellon’s graduates in May: “Electricians, plumbers, iron workers, technicians, builders — this is your time.”
The honest read for NZ workers
Strip the advocacy from both reports and a practical picture emerges for New Zealand:
- Construction-phase work is the near-certain part. Even Verdant’s deflated maths does not touch the build numbers, and Datagrid’s 1,200-job promise is a contractual commitment on ground already broken. If you want the surest pay, it is in the build: electrical, mechanical and civil trades, with 60 percent of BCG’s peak roles in exactly those categories.
- Permanent operational roles will be scarcer than headlines imply. Whether it is BCG’s 1-per-megawatt or Verdant’s 1.2-per-megawatt, a country’s worth of data centres is not a country’s worth of permanent jobs. Verdant’s critique, if it transfers, suggests even fewer.
- NZ specifics sharpen the trade-off. The Greens have called for a one-year moratorium on new data centre consents citing water and electricity concerns, and the Makarewa project has drawn local opposition over its power draw — so the 1GW scenario BCG modelled is a policy choice, not a settled fact. Seek’s July data showed NZ job ads with low automation exposure growing 13.7 percent year on year while AI skills mentions nearly doubled — the trades-and-AI-adjacent demand is broad, not data-centre-dependent.
For career planners, the sensible play is the one both reports quietly agree on: the AI boom’s most accessible new jobs are in the physical layer, and they reward exactly the apprenticeship pipeline NZ already has. Treat the 5,000 as the optimistic case, the build-phase jobs as the bankable core, and permanent operations as a bonus — then watch whether Stratford and Makarewa actually crew up as promised, because those two projects will settle the argument faster than any think tank.
FAQ
How many jobs could NZ data centres create? BCG estimates about 5,000 jobs from a 1GW build-out — roughly 3,500 during peak construction (60 percent electrical and mechanical trades, 21 percent civil) plus about 1,000 permanent operational roles. A UK think tank, Verdant, argues permanent operational jobs at modern automated data centres run closer to 1.2 per megawatt, suggesting the permanent figure could be far lower.
Are data centre jobs actually being created in New Zealand now? Yes, at construction stage. Datagrid started earthworks at its 280MW Makarewa campus in August 2026, projecting more than 1,200 construction jobs, and Contact Energy with CDC Data Centres is exploring a 250MW site at Stratford, Taranaki.
Do data centre jobs pay well? In the US, Indeed found data centre installation and maintenance roles advertise wages about 40 percent above comparable work in other fields. NZ equivalents — electricians and HVAC technicians — are in chronic shortage, which has historically pushed rates above the national wage median.
Is the AI data centre boom good for NZ workers? The construction phase looks like a clear win for trades workers; the permanent-jobs picture is contested. Benefits depend heavily on policy choices — consents, power allocation, and whether local crews and firms win the contracts — and on projects like Makarewa and Stratford proceeding as planned.
— CJ Murden, editor of Singularity.Kiwi. Former digital technologies teacher, author of AI-focused books. Writing with a New Zealand focus.
