Gen Z: Powering a Data Centre Revolution

The data centre industry is facing a generational skills gap that threatens to open, and widen over the next several years. With the average age of an engineer in the UK being 54, and with little succession planning in place, this gap risks becoming a skills chasm in data centre engineering. It raises the question of if and how the industry can convince a new generation to enter the sector before it is too late?

Attracting and retaining new talent begins with resisting, in the hopes of defeating, some stereotypical attitudes. The Ancient Greeks tended toward the view that younger generations represented a decline in civilisation. A quote attributed to Socrates is illustrative: ‘The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.’

Jump forward almost two and a half millennia, and too often Gen Z are having to face equivalent doubts and prejudices as they enter the workforce and seek to start careers. But this is far from the only challenge that Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, are forced to confront. As well as the need to prove themselves in the workplace, they are acutely aware of climate change, economic insecurity and global instability as it affects their lives as professionals; adult lives which are only just beginning. In this first of a series of three articles based on interviews with four young adults who joined AVK in the last year, we focus on what the world of work means to Gen Z.

“Generation Z are at the forefront of youth protests about climate change. The income gains and likelihood of security in old age experienced by past generations have stalled, and in some countries reversed. In advanced economies the risk of poverty is shifting from the old to the young. The pessimism about many young people’s prospects in many advanced economies is based not on broad economic trends but on lived experience,” writes Minouche Shafik, President and Vice Chancellor of the London School of Economics (2017-2023), now Baroness Shafik, in her 2021 book, What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract. An older and more experienced workforce, such as that which makes up the most of the data centre industry, owe as much to the new generation of workers as the new generation owes to it.

And in the face of such tests and obstacles, individuals from Gen Z portray a maturity level that shows they are well informed, have serious intent, are willing to question perceived norms and have much to offer to meet the challenges of the coming decades.

AVK – Attracting talent with its hiring policy

Entering the world of work can be a daunting experience. What happens in those first few weeks and months can shape perspectives and individuals.

We asked two graduates Megan O’Connor, AVK Lead CAD Engineer and Mechanical Engineer, Filippos van Ryswyk, alongside Austin Warriner and Conor Tillett, both Trainee Service Engineers, about starting and growing their careers with AVK.

Megan is AVK’s first Lead CAD Engineer. Though she did a placement in CAD during university, Megan ‘didn’t think it was the sector [she] was going to go into.’ She joined AVK following stints in kitchen design and as a solar power system CAD technician. She was promoted to her role early in 2025.

‘At AVK I started off as a CAD Engineer in sales. But now, as lead, I cover the CAD team in London and the operation side of the CAD team in Maidenhead,’ she says. ‘After I’d dipped my toes in power generation, you can just kind of fall into this thing called the data centre industry.’

Another relatively recent addition to the AVK team is Filippos van Ryswyk, a 22-year-old Mechanical Engineer who first heard about the company at his University STEM fair. He says, ‘Friends who were doing internships told me about AVK,’ and ‘I became interested as I was looking for a grad role. So here I am, 10 months later, working in the data centre prime power sector. It’s a challenge, that’s for sure. But it’s so much fun.’

A common theme among some Gen Z individuals interviewed here is that they find themselves in the familiar conundrum of dealing with rejection and struggling to find a first career job.

In an economy where many people’s first working experience is a choice between gig economy based, low-skilled retail or hospitality employment, they find that despite a willingness to learn and apply themselves, companies are too often unwilling to invest in training to develop skills.

Their experience is the age-old chicken and egg issue of not getting a job due to lack of experience and not having experience due to lack of a job.

Conor Tillett and Austin Warriner joined AVK as Trainee Service Engineers in late 2024.

‘I don’t think everyone is fortunate enough to know and plan for what they want to do as a career. So, wherever you land,’ says Conor, ‘enjoy it’ and ‘just keep going at it.’

In terms of starting a career, with ‘the way the world is at the moment, things are quite hard to get into’. ‘But with AVK,’ he continues, ‘it looked like they were trying to push for more young people. I think it is something more companies need to do.’

Asking Gen Z: What is a data centre?

For data centre engineering companies this could represent an untapped resource opportunity.

So, this raises the question – are young people aware of the data centre and power sectors?

When you tell people you work in the data centre industry, few – whether fellow Zoomers or not – seem to know what a data centre is, while those who have heard of such a thing ‘don’t necessarily know what it does’, says Megan.

Even for those who have entered the industry, there is an element of surprise. At first, it ‘appears niche. But then you find there’s this massive industry that’s still growing now and will be growing for the foreseeable future,’ she says.

Some are less confused about what the data centre industry does but are surprised that certain of our interviewees work in it: ‘I’ve got brightly-coloured hair,’ says Megan, ‘and a lot of the time people don’t believe that I could be working in data centres.’

Megan’s course at university was ‘heavily male-dominated’, and this is true of the ‘engineering and construction industry,’ too. In the ‘short space of time since [she] graduated’, there has been visible progress, however: ‘it’s nice to see women coming into the sector’.

Working in data centres

So, apart from a wage, what can the industry itself offer? Here Conor, Austin and Filippos share some of their first year experiences.

What Conor loves most about being a Trainee Service Engineer is the opportunity it offers to ‘learn new skills and knowledge’.

With their ‘clear vision of what they want to do’ and their commitment to ‘training more young people’, AVK, says Conor, are an excellent match for his desire ‘to do better each day, to try and improve myself’, to ‘reach that next level, such as knowing more in the generator world’.

This world is what excites Austin most about his job going forward, too: of all the new things Austin’s job allows him to learn ‘every day’, it is the sense of how every component in a generator ‘works in harmony’, with ‘every single part’ having ‘a big and important use’, that Austin finds ‘really interesting’.

For Filippos, it is ‘the integration of the systems’, ‘how it’s all put together’, that ‘fascinates’ him the most.

Culture and working environment

So much for the nuts and bolts. What about company culture, engagement and outlook?

A sense of working ‘in harmony’ and feeling integrated are also, as it happens, the qualities that distinguish AVK as a good place to work for young people, according to the interviewees.

For Austin, this was a pleasant surprise. When he first joined, he hadn’t realised ‘how many people would be behind the scenes that allow us engineers to go out on the road and do our job’. ‘The company gets everyone involved’, both in and outside the workplace: the ‘kick-off meetings’ and the ‘weekend events’ are great opportunities for socialising, while the company’s collaboration app, which Austin compares to Facebook, is a further way in which ‘everyone’ at AVK can communicate and feel ‘like one organisation’.

Megan plays an important role in this. Having recently (March 2025) become Lead CAD Engineer, a ‘big part’ of her post has been ‘establishing’ both ‘communicating processes’ and the ‘standards we work to’ in order to ‘enable the teams to know exactly which way to go’ with ‘various projects’.

This kind of integration applies vertically as well as horizontally: Filippos is keen to point out how much he is learning from his boss and how much responsibility he feels he has already been given. ‘To be able to contribute ideas on process, how data is recorded and how it looks’, has been ‘encouraging’, he says. Recently, for example, Filippos worked on ‘developing a review section to go alongside document control’. Though ‘at first it feels like you are being bombarded with information’, it is ‘very satisfying’, he says, to ‘get to show clients or consultants the value that you bring’.

The ‘main thing’ Austin enjoys about being a Trainee Service Engineer is the ‘variety of the work’. Where his grandfather, as an engineer for Kimberly Clark, would be ‘working in the same place every day’, Austin’s role allows him to visit new places and meet new people, with ‘a lot of servicing’ and ‘a lot of remedials’. Still, the nature of his and his grandfather’s job remains ‘hands-on’, which is the kind of work Austin has enjoyed since doing DT at secondary school.

As part of their training Austin and Conor were sent on a site visit to Abu Dhabi. ‘My second time out of Europe. Incredible experience,’ says Austin.

The impact of technology on careers

AI is depicted more and more as a threat to young people’s job security, with the Guardian reporting (Lauren Almeida, 30 June 2025) a drop of ‘almost a third’ in the number of ‘new entry-level UK jobs’ since the introduction of ChatGPT to the workplace.

It is not lost on this group of Gen Zs that, even as they embark on a career in building the next generation of infrastructure and driving the digital revolution, the technologies powered by data centres will also impact their own working lives.

Though the daily activities of a Trainee Service Engineer are diverse, the role itself, thinks Austin, is not going ‘to change too much for the time being.’

In Austin’s view, ‘you will always need engineers on site because of the physical nature of the job.’ It is precisely the ‘hands-on’ nature of engineering, which links Austin’s work at AVK to the work of his grandfather at Kimberly Clark in the past, that seems likely to secure its future.

This is not to say that technology plays only a small part in Austin’s role. In fact, Austin credits his ‘good job security’ to the digital revolution – the environmental impact of which remains, nonetheless, a key concern – and claims that in his day-to-day work ‘technology is being implemented more and more’.

Future career paths and opportunities

In his book VALUE(S) Building a Better Future for All, former head of the Bank of England, now Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney wrote: “Sustained economic progress depends on inclusive economic institutions that allow and encourage the great mass of people to take part in economic activities that make the best use of their talents and skills…Social capital refers to the shared values and beliefs in a society which encourage individuals not only to take responsibility for themselves and their families but also to trust each other and work collaboratively to support each other.”

AVK believes that companies should attract young people and develop their careers. More broadly it recognises that if the sector is willing to recognise its responsibilities, there is in fact much cause for optimism.

We asked our interviewees to think about where they want their immediate career futures to take them.

Filippos says he plans to specialise. A particular area of interest is ‘changing fuels in gen sets’ – ‘the idea that we’re looking at things like the conversion of gen sets from diesel to HVO, to natural gas, to hydrogen, is fascinating. How do we get there? What could be more interesting than that?’

Conor views AVK as having a clear vision which matches his own ambition for growth, saying ‘what gets me out of bed in the morning is the motivation to do better each day, to try and improve myself, learning new skills and keep on pushing myself to reach that next level. I want to prove myself.’

Austin’s motivation is responsibility. In practical terms he is keen to get onto more complex work such as strip downs of entire engines and putting them back together. ‘It’s one of the quite intense parts of the job and I want to have responsibility for that. For now, I’m just learning day by day.’

For Megan, the future is about continued progress, combined with the growth of the industry itself.

This is what makes it ‘really important’ for the industry not to have ‘any prejudices or bias against someone because of, say, their gender, or how they identify,’ Megan believes.

‘The industry itself needs fresh mindsets to come in to think outside the box.’

Final thoughts

The Gen Z candidates that are entering the workplace have so much to give, as seen in our interviews with the AVK team. We’re always looking for fresh talent too – take a look at our opportunities to see if something may suit you.

Our next episode explores how technology is shaping the lives of Gen Z digital natives. Stay tuned.