Claire Keelan, Managing Director UK at Onnec, explains why project-based delivery models will become the backbone of new builds and upgrades in 2026, as traditional staffing struggles to match the pace and complexity of AI-led demand.
The data centre industry is constantly evolving. As AI workloads accelerate, operators are under mounting pressure to scale capacity while navigating skills shortages, infrastructure constraints and rising expectations around resilience. What worked a few years ago is no longer enough. Delivery models, workforce strategies and site design assumptions are all being tested.
In 2026, success will depend less on expansion and more on adaptability. Operators will need to rethink how projects are staffed, where capacity is built, and how existing assets are upgraded to meet AI demand. Flexible labour, broader talent inclusion, regional diversification and retrofitting will move from tactical considerations to strategic priorities.
The data centre ‘gig economy’ becomes backbone of delivery
Flexible labour models will underpin almost every new data centre project. Traditional staffing can’t scale at the speed AI demands. By 2026, flexible, crowdsourced, project-based teams will fill critical gaps across design, building, and operations. This shift isn’t about replacing expertise, it’s about redeploying it. Clear standards, accreditation, and safety frameworks will make flexibility viable at scale, turning part-time professionals and returning workers into a reliable, high-quality talent engine.
Women become central to meeting capacity targets
With women making up less than 8% of the current workforce, the imbalance is holding the sector back. In 2026, diversity will shift from talking point to operational priority. This means targeted recruitment, retraining programmes, and mentorship networks designed to bring more women into engineering, safety, and leadership roles. Diversity will be treated as a business resilience issue, not just a social goal. This is because the industry can’t meet AI’s demands while sidelining a sizable portion of its potential workforce.
AI growth zones redraw the map
Regional ‘AI growth zones’ will emerge as the new engines of capacity. In 2026, Manchester, South Wales, and Scotland will continue to gain momentum thanks to lower land costs, renewable energy access, and close ties to academic institutions. This regional diversification will help balance power use and strengthen resilience against local constraints. The days of London and the M4 corridor as the single dominant hub are fading; the future of data centres is distributed, collaborative, and regionally connected.
Retrofitting becomes a reality check
With the UK home to one of the world’s largest portfolios of legacy data centres, over the next year operators must prove how fast they can innovate to stay ahead in the new AI landscape.
In 2026, we’ll see a surge in retrofitted data centres as operators rush to upgrade legacy sites to meet soaring AI demand. Power and cooling will be complex, but cabling and network capacity will be the real bottlenecks. Poor-quality or overcrowded cabling limits density, throttles performance, and makes future upgrades almost impossible.
Smart operators will invest early in high-grade structured systems that support modular expansion and long-term flexibility. ‘Retrofit-ready’ will become the new benchmark for responsible, future-proof design.
Looking into 2026
By 2026, the data centre sector will be defined less by how much capacity it builds and more by how intelligently it evolves. AI is compressing timelines, exposing fragility, and forcing long-term decisions into the present. Operators that treat this moment as a simple scaling challenge will struggle. Those that recognise it as a structural reset will set the pace.
Data centres are becoming critical national infrastructure for an AI-driven economy, and resilience will matter as much as raw performance. Leadership will belong to operators that move early, design for uncertainty, and embed adaptability. The question in 2026 is not who can grow fastest, but who can keep up when the rules keep changing.
This article is part of our DCR Predicts 2026 series. Come back every week in January for more.
