Working in a Data Center

The Italian data centre industry is growing rapidly and the labour market is changing rapidly with the digitisation of our economy, as all digital applications originate from or are located in data centres.

Lavorare in un Data Center (1)

As society and the Italian economy are increasingly dependent on the digital world, the data centre sector is also growing strongly. In 2022, it marked +18% per year.

Working in a datacenter therefore offers huge opportunities for first-timers and professionals who want to contribute to the development of the industry and digital applications such as cloud computing, 5G, IoT, AI and augmented and virtual reality.

The personnel working within a data centre and in the industry chain are very heterogeneous. They include technical, management, commercial and support functions. According to a recent study by CBRE Italy, based on data published by Eurostat in 2022, a total of about 17,000 people are employed in Italian data centres and in the companies that are part of the industry supply chain.

Hundreds of people are involved in the construction of a medium to large data centre and altogether, data centres will create tens of thousands of jobs throughout Italy in the years to come.

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Why work in a Datacenter?

Working in the data center sector means working on the digitization of the country and in an ever-growing sector. Here are some of the reasons to work in this sector:

State-of-the-art context for digitization and innovation

Internet, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Robotics, Virtual Reality, etc. Digital technology is everywhere and developing at an incredibly fast pace. All of these technologies are literally housed in datacenters. Working in the data center industry means working at the cutting edge of digital innovation.

Employment guarantee

Work in the data center sector is guaranteed and will not experience a crisis. Unlike many other industries, automation has not led to job losses.

The world is becoming increasingly digital and this means that data centers will also continue to grow strongly. Choosing a career in the data center sector therefore means having a solid future and job security.

Lots of training and career opportunities

The data center is a unique crossroads of different and continuously developing technologies, which, in addition to making it incredibly interesting, offers specific and continuous training to all the professional figures employed there. Therefore, access to ambitious career paths is simplified given the multiplicity of professional figures and skills involved in the sector.

Competitive salaries and excellent working conditions

The degree of complexity of a data center and its infrastructure, combined with the country’s digital prosperity, makes the sector highly competitive and attractive for figures to be trained or already specialized with experience. This translates into higher average salaries compared to a figure of the same level belonging to another sector and involved companies attentive to the well-being of their collaborators.

Datacenters have a huge impact on the economy and employment, in terms of direct and indirect employment.

Direct occupation

Datacenters generate a lot of employment: thousands of people are employed in Italian datacenters. These are technical functions that involve experts such as engineers, systems engineers, maintenance and infrastructure technicians and security functions that employ security guards or security specialists, as well as support and management functions that include various areas including sales, legal, financial control.

Indirect employment

In addition to the internal staff of a data center, the sector also generates employment indirectly. In fact, data center operations often involve a lot of staff from third-party service providers, and data center customers and suppliers themselves employ additional staff. Given the rapid growth that is characterizing the DC market, many workers are needed, especially in the construction, installation and maintenance sector.

Total occupation

In addition to direct and indirect occupation, there is also an induced effect. These are the impact of employee spending on the local economy and employment; direct and indirect employees of the datacenters, in fact, contribute to local spending, favoring the country’s economy.

As anticipated therefore, considering the economic activities connected more or less directly to the Datacenter sector (i.e. management of computerized structures, hosting and supply of application systems, other services connected to information technology), around 17,000 people are employed in the generation of a turnover of around 5 billion euros, considering only the direct ramifications of this area.

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