An opinion piece penned by Luke Foxley, Chief People Officer of Global Commissioning
Executive Summary
- Data centres are critical to our tech world, but the industry faces a prominent issue: talent development. Data centres need to be able to bring in the next generation of skilled talent with the right mindset, experience and skills.
- National Apprenticeship Week’s 2026 theme is: “It’s in the making,” which emphasises the potential and growth that apprenticeships offer to both apprentices and employers and especially in commissioning, where it supports quality, progression and stability.
- Commissioning is a discipline learned through hands-on experience in real environments, learning from errors and gradually building experience over time.
From scrolling through social media to online banking, data centres are fundamental to daily life, but there has always been a persistent challenge in the data centre industry, even as it evolves: how do we develop and bring in the next generation of skilled talent with the right experience, mindset, and skills to ensure future success? In a high-performing and demanding sector like data centres, where £2.2 trillion will be spent on data centres that support AI between now and 2029, skills aren’t developed instantly, but cultivated through practical experience and mentorships from those who have already dedicated years to the sector.
Commissioning is a discipline learned through experience. Technical understanding and quality awareness are shaped by hands-on experience in real environments. We must bring the next generation to the forefront of business strategies in deliberately growing skills and capabilities, not just enhancing, and with National Apprenticeship Week, talent is vital.
Building Skills through Experience
In commissioning, where reliability, quality and safety are critical, it demands more than just technical expertise alone, but a deeper understanding of specialist processes and standards that can only be gained through hands-on exposure. Real competence is developed through working with real-world situations, learning from errors, and gradually building confidence over time. Previously ‘hidden’ as an industry, the digital ecosystem is now being noticed, and there is a crucial opportunity for commissioning services to encourage new skills into their repertoire.
A pipeline approach for skills enrichment acknowledges that people need new chances to acquire knowledge through practical experience. From apprenticeships and graduates to people retraining from other industries, we must facilitate this by bringing together formal education with accountability, allowing individuals to make significant contributions while developing their skills at a manageable rate.
Supporting Growth
As National Apprenticeship Week’s 2026 theme is: “It’s in the making†– it emphasises the potential and growth that apprenticeships offer to both apprentices and employers. For commissioning, this approach supports quality, progression and stability, highlighting growth being strengthened by capability rather than compromise.
With organisations promoting organised learning frameworks are helping to guarantee individuals grasp not just how tasks are accomplished, but the reasons for these standards.
For commissioning, this approach supports both workforce resiliency and consistent delivery. People who are trained, supported and given clear progression pathways are better prepared to take responsibility and uphold standards over time.
A Standard Worth Protecting
The increasing pace of growth in the data centre sector shows no sign of slowing. But growth must never come at the expense of standards. Programmes encourage talent development but also ensures that commissioning continues to meet the demands of critical infrastructure today and safeguard the future of commissioning itself.
For commissioning, the real challenge is not finding people but building supported pathways that allow skills to develop properly over time. Shifting from reacting to skills gaps to deliberately building this talent pipeline will allow the industry to support the next generation of AI and high-performance computing and ensure the future success of the digital infrastructure. At Global Commissioning, we lead where others follow, investing in that high standards are built by people, and the best way to protect those standards is to invest in the people who will uphold them for years to come.
