This article is a part of Poland Unpacked. Weekly intelligence for decision-makers
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The global AI boom is fueling unprecedented demand for data centers. These facilities provide the infrastructure not only for virtually every cloud-based digital service but also for training artificial intelligence models. According to consulting firm McKinsey, global capital spending on data centers will need to reach as much as $6.7 trillion by 2030 to meet projected demand. More than three-quarters of that investment will go toward AI-focused data centers. Conventional data centers supporting other digital services will also require massive investment, with McKinsey estimating spending of $1.5 trillion by 2030.
Investors are racing to keep pace with demand, including in Europe. In the fourth quarter of 2025, 517 MW of new data-center capacity came online across the continent. Over the course of the year, operators delivered a total of 859 MW of new capacity, according to real estate advisory firm CBRE. Even so, demand for computing capacity continues to outstrip supply. CBRE estimates that European demand will reach around 848 MW in 2026, while only about 710 MW of new capacity is expected to be added. That would mark the fourth time in the past five years that demand has exceeded the pace of new investment.
Data centers cannot run themselves
The investment boom is being accompanied by a structural shortage of skilled workers, affecting both new developments and existing facilities. According to Uptime Institute, an advisory organization specializing in the data-center industry, the talent shortage has persisted for more than a decade. The challenge extends beyond recruitment to employee retention.
The gap reflects both rising demand for qualified professionals and the retirement of experienced operations staff. At the same time, the industry continues to struggle to attract enough new entrants. In the latest edition of Uptime Institute's long-running global survey, 53% of data-center employers said they were having difficulty finding suitably qualified candidates for open positions.
"The severity of the talent shortage had stabilized somewhat in recent years. This year's data suggest, however, that the industry's recruitment challenges are beginning to intensify once again," the report's authors conclude.
Interactive chart Equinix, the U.S.-based global provider of digital infrastructure and data-center services, estimates that the industry will need to recruit more than 450,000 additional specialists by 2030. Demand spans a wide range of roles, from experts in power and cooling systems to systems administrators and network and infrastructure engineers.
Poland can benefit from the transformation
Equinix operates 280 data centers across 30 countries, including Poland. In Warsaw, the company runs four facilities with a combined 7,600 square meters (about 82,000 square feet) of colocation space.
Sylwia Pyśkiewicz, Managing Director of Equinix Poland and the Vice President of the Polish Data Center Association (PLDCA), believes the industry's current trajectory presents a major opportunity for the country. That is despite Poland's still modest position in the European market: the country accounts for only around 2% of the continent's data-center computing capacity.
Ms. Pyśkiewicz says Poland's relatively small share of the European data-center market can largely be explained by two factors. First, electricity prices remained high for many years because of the country's heavy reliance on coal in its energy mix. Since data centers are highly energy-intensive, that reduced Poland's attractiveness as an investment destination. Second, investors were deterred by the war behind Poland's eastern border.
"Today the picture is very different. Poland has become Europe's largest construction site for energy projects. Investment in the country's energy transition is expected to reach $250 billion. That is increasingly being recognized internationally, and we are seeing it reflected in growing customer interest and new investment.
As for geopolitics, we cannot say the region has become significantly more stable. But the world as a whole has become so unpredictable that Poland is no longer viewed by customers as a country on the edge of a war zone. Rather, there is now a growing recognition that, in theory, almost anywhere in the world could find itself facing similar geopolitical risks," says Ms. Pyśkiewicz.
Interactive chart Poland is also benefiting from the fact that Western Europe's leading data-center hubs are approaching the limits of their growth. According to Colliers in its EMEA Data Centre Markets Report, the industry's five largest hubs—known collectively as FLAP-D (Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin)—are increasingly constrained by limited access to electricity grids, longer grid-connection lead times, cumbersome permitting procedures, and a shrinking supply of suitable development sites. As a result, investors are increasingly looking beyond the region's established markets for new locations.
"We are seeing a clear geographical shift in Europe's data-center market. Just a few years ago, the vast majority of investment was concentrated almost exclusively in the largest hubs of Western Europe. Today, competitive advantage increasingly lies with locations that can offer sufficient grid-connection capacity and a fast, efficient process from agreeing connection terms with the distribution system operator to completing the grid connection itself. Poland has the potential to play a very important role in this transition," says Dariusz Chrzanowski, Head of Energy Advisory at Colliers.
Expert’s perspective
Demand for data centers in Poland is accelerating
Growth is being driven not only by artificial intelligence—including AI campuses and cloud services—but also by rising demand from the public sector, financial institutions, e-commerce, medtech, and multinational companies expanding their digital infrastructure across the region.
Demand alone, however, is no longer enough. The decisive factor is access to electricity and the ability to secure grid connections quickly. In practice, the most valuable combination today is threefold: suitable land in the right location, available power, and efficient administrative procedures. These factors will determine which locations remain competitive and how quickly Poland's data-center market continues to expand.
Talent could be Poland's decisive advantage
Ms. Pyśkiewicz believes there is another compelling reason to invest in Poland's data-center sector: its people.
"I think Poland's greatest strength is its talent. That is what has driven our success. Polish professionals provide services to companies around the world. Just as Poland first became a hub for shared services, then for IT, product development, and R&D centers—all industries that depend on highly skilled workers—I believe the country can now establish itself as a leading location for the data-center industry as well," says the Vice President of PLDCA.
Realizing that potential will require sustained investment in the skills the industry needs. According to Ms. Pyśkiewicz, successfully developing those capabilities would strengthen Poland's position as a European data-center hub. For professionals, meanwhile, the sector offers attractive career prospects thanks to its rapid growth and international reach.
"It is an exceptionally exciting industry. It supports not only business but society as a whole, and it is growing at double-digit rates in almost every country. It is also a truly global business. Companies operate across borders, data centers are interconnected, and so are the people who work in them.
"At Equinix, our Warsaw office hosts a competence center supporting operations in 30 countries. We employ people who live in Warsaw but report to teams in dozens of locations around the world. Around 60% of the 500 employees in our Warsaw office work in this international model. The industry therefore offers the opportunity to collaborate with diverse teams and learn from some of the world's leading specialists and managers. From a career-development perspective, that is an enormous advantage," she says.
Expert's perspective
Demand for specialists remains strong
Just a few years ago, data centers were associated primarily with physical infrastructure and server administration. Today, they are highly automated environments in which professionals responsible for platform engineering, cybersecurity, automation, and data management play an equally critical role. In our recruitment processes, the strongest demand is for DevOps engineers, Site Reliability Engineers (SREs), Cloud Platform Engineers, Infrastructure Engineers, Data Engineers, Linux and Windows systems administrators, and cybersecurity specialists.
Employers are also increasingly seeking experts in Kubernetes, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), networking, production-environment monitoring, and cloud architecture. As cyber threats continue to grow, infrastructure security has become one of organizations' top priorities, directly fueling hiring demand.
Employers' expectations have evolved as well. Traditional systems-administration experience alone is no longer sufficient, and Poland continues to face a shortage of experienced infrastructure specialists. Professionals with hands-on expertise in automation, cloud-native environments, data engineering, and cybersecurity are among the most sought-after IT specialists in the market today.
That demand is reflected in compensation. Experienced DevOps, SRE, Cloud Platform Engineering, and Cybersecurity professionals typically earn PLN 170-210 (EUR 40-50) net per hour on B2B contracts. Senior technical experts and infrastructure leaders responsible for designing and developing complex systems can command more than PLN 220 (EUR 52) net per hour.
The industry cannot grow without women
A major challenge facing the data-center industry—both globally and in Poland—will be attracting more women into the sector.
"We simply won't be able to find enough workers by recruiting only men. The industry needs access to a much broader talent pool," says Sylwia Pyśkiewicz, Managing Director of Equinix Poland.
She argues that the need for more women is not driven solely by labor shortages. Diverse teams also perform better, making gender diversity a competitive advantage. Yet technology-related fields continue to attract predominantly male candidates.
The imbalance goes beyond workforce demographics. Today's technology sector is still widely perceived as being shaped by so-called "tech bros"—an industry designed by men and largely from a male perspective.
Good to know
Poland's data-center capacity could more than double within a few years
Poland already accounts for roughly one-third of all data-center capacity in Central and Eastern Europe. The country's commercial data centers had a combined capacity of more than 200 MW in 2024. If current growth trends continue, total capacity could exceed 550 MW by the end of 2031, according to the latest report on the Polish data-center market published by the Polish Data Center Association (PLDCA) and PwC.
CBRE estimates that Poland could add around 500 MW of additional data-center capacity by 2030, while PMR Market Experts projects growth on a similar scale.
The industry currently provides 27,100 direct jobs, according to PLDCA and PwC's report The Economic Impact of Data Centres in Poland. These include IT engineers, technicians, network specialists, facilities management staff, and administrative employees.
The report estimates that the sector also supports an additional 4,300 indirect jobs across the wider economy, including in construction, energy, and logistics.
"Perhaps the most worrying thing is that the trend is moving in the wrong direction. It's not that women used to avoid IT and are now entering the field in greater numbers. The data show that the share of women in IT has fallen from 20% to 16%. The picture is no better across the broader technology sector, where women's representation has declined from 22% to 19%. Women remain severely underrepresented in leadership roles as well—holding just 13% of management positions and only 8% of board seats. So there is still a tremendous amount of work to do," says Sylwia Pyśkiewicz.
In her view, these disparities are not driven by objective barriers. Instead, the bigger obstacles are women's lack of confidence in their own abilities and persistent social stereotypes.
"Many women looking for jobs assume that positions in the IT industry are not for them or that they don't have the necessary qualifications. They simply underestimate their own capabilities. But a technology company is, in many ways, just like any other business—it simply offers a different product. What women need most is greater confidence in their skills, especially since those skills can always be developed or expanded. The market is constantly evolving, including in technology and the data-center industry. The skills you have today will not be enough tomorrow anyway," says Sylwia Pyśkiewicz.
The skills gap remains the market's biggest challenge
Poland has significant potential to expand its data-center industry. But realizing that opportunity will require sustained investment in developing the skilled workforce needed to build and operate the country's growing digital infrastructure, labor-market experts say.
"The Polish labor market will need an increasing number of highly qualified specialists. Data centers are not an industry that creates thousands of jobs overnight, but every new facility generates demand for highly specialized skills that are already in short supply. And as artificial intelligence continues to expand, that demand will only increase," says Krzysztof Inglot, founder of Personnel Service and a labor-market expert.
In his view, Poland has the potential to strengthen its position as a regional hub for digital infrastructure. However, the success of future investments will depend in large part on whether the country can provide the skilled professionals the industry requires.
Good to know
The talent data centers need most
According to Joanna Kubik, an expert at Randstad Poland, the most sought-after—and hardest-to-hire—professionals in the data-center industry include:
- Data Center / Critical Infrastructure Engineers – specialists in uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, backup generators, medium- and high-voltage switchgear, and precision cooling technologies, including liquid cooling for AI servers.
- Network & Cloud Engineers – network architects, fiber-optic specialists, interconnection experts, and engineers specializing in BGP routing and peering.
- Cybersecurity and compliance specialists – SOC analysts, critical infrastructure security experts, and auditors responsible for compliance with standards and regulations such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, NIS2, and DORA.
- DevOps and Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) – engineers responsible for ensuring service uptime, automating infrastructure and server monitoring, and managing computing clusters.
- Facility Managers and Sustainability Specialists – professionals focused on improving Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), sourcing renewable energy, and implementing waste-heat recovery solutions.
Data centers are hiring specialists—and finding them is no easy task
Joanna Kubik, National Sales & Key Account Manager at Randstad Poland, confirms that the skills gap is the main challenge facing investors in Poland.
"The data-center market requires a unique combination of electrical and mechanical expertise, advanced IT knowledge, and fluency in English. We are seeing that recruitment for data-center facilities often requires companies to look beyond traditional talent pools—for example, by retraining engineers from industrial automation, energy, telecommunications, or maritime sectors," says Joanna Kubik.
She argues that demand for specialists in the sector is already very strong in Poland. At the same time, the industry is particularly demanding because of its highly specialized nature.
"This market differs significantly from the traditional software-development sector. The data-center industry sits at the intersection of advanced IT, industrial engineering, and physical and digital security. Employment growth in this area is continuous. After the design and construction phase—when companies need civil engineers and electromechanical installation specialists—comes a multi-year operational phase requiring highly qualified maintenance teams working around the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year," says the Randstad Poland expert.
Let’s not squander the opportunity
Poland's success in the data-center industry is far from guaranteed. However, Sylwia Pyśkiewicz, Managing Director of Equinix Poland, remains optimistic about the country's ability to attract new investment. She identifies several areas that will require continued support.
The priority, she says, is attracting businesses and artificial intelligence solutions themselves.
"The development of data centers depends above all on a rapid expansion of affordable energy supply—in other words, on the success of the energy transition. We also need to continue supporting investment. I believe we are moving in the right direction. When it comes to the energy sector, I am confident that we are heading the right way. I also hope that Poland's energy system will keep pace with the needs of the industry. Policymakers and business leaders in Poland are open to investment and understand the needs of the sector.
"I am also extremely proud of Poles. I believe in our country. We are an entrepreneurial nation focused on growth. I think that this human capital alone can help us attract AI-related business—and not only AI-related business," says Sylwia Pyśkiewicz.
Key takeaways
- Demand for data-center workers could reach around 450,000 people by 2030, according to Equinix. The industry is experiencing a surge in demand driven by the global artificial intelligence boom. This could create a major opportunity for Poland, which has built its economic strength on world-class expertise in IT and business services, says Sylwia Pyśkiewicz, Managing Director of Equinix Poland.
- Both the data-center industry and the broader technology sector need to recruit more women. The share of women working in IT remains significantly lower than that of men. According to Sylwia Pyśkiewicz, this imbalance is not the result of objective factors, but rather reflects broader confidence gaps and social stereotypes.
- Billions of dollars in energy-transition investment have changed how Poland is perceived as a potential data-center destination. Data centers require reliable access to large volumes of affordable power. An energy system heavily dependent on increasingly expensive coal was a disadvantage, but large-scale investment in renewable energy is changing the equation.