 Welcome to JSA TV and JSA broadcasts the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Jean-Marc Sliman, joining me today is Andrew Stevens, president and CEO of CNET training to talk us through the data center talent gap. Andrew, thank you so much for talking to us. How serious is this current talent gap that we've got in the data center space? Hi, I think thank you. It's really serious. It really is a challenge. It's something that we started talking about 10, 15 years ago. And at the time it was just, I think largely thought of as a problem that would solve itself, but it hasn't. And it's getting getting worse. We've got an aging workforce that are all set to retire. We've got inflated salaries. We've got organizations trying to recruit from the same spaces. And no one is really looking at where the problem is. And the problem is we're an industry that's unknown. And everyone talks about this, but we've got to do something about it. So we've got to get together and try to first of all understand the size of the problem. How big would you say the problem is? I mean, do you have numbers? No, it's very difficult. It's very difficult to put numbers on. But I mean, if you talk to any of the data center companies, but also the supply chain. I mean, this is something that we don't talk about. The supply chain to these DC builds, these DC moves, they're struggling. And often the supply chain doesn't have the ability to pay the salaries that maybe the sort of, let me call them the end user, because in this case they are the provider of the service and they are the ultimate employer. And so those companies in the supply chain just can't find the people either. So it is significant. It's affecting everybody. And we're also, of course, in a particular period where other industries are suffering shortages as well. So where we're looking for these people, we're in a competitive place and we're in a competitive place with the industries that are well known and recognized. You know, in the influence for choosing a career path or choosing the industry. It starts very, very young, obviously with your, you know, your parents, close family, whatever got involved in and we have a pretty small community that that starts from. And certainly we always smile and joke if you're at a dinner party and someone asks you what you do and you tell them you're in a data center industry. So it's really hard. It's really hard to come together as an industry. This is one of those topics where similar to climate change, similar to sustainability, no organization can do this on their own. And we've really, really got to be effective and focus on how we solve the problem and not focus too heavily on trying to solve it now in the immediate sea because we can't solve the immediate problem. We've got to work through it and build a talent pipeline that has to go back to, you know, school, and we've got to engage with schools we've got to have correct programs to attract people to this industry. That's interesting I mean you brought quite a lot of different topics, especially the holistic view, not just within the data center we're bringing the other industries that are related to the data center the indirect industry that work with us the supply chain I think that came to light even more during covid and we're seeing some crisis in other industries now especially in the UK you've got a lot of backgrounds so you will know well the energy crisis because of the truck drivers. I mean it's, it's a very interesting era but it's interesting to also say that we need to prepare the future generations so go back to school and start with children. Is CNET doing anything around that or is CNET more focused on the university level. No I mean we do believe that you've got to really get involved at the school level. We've been one of driving forces behind the opening of the first university technical college here in the UK, it's going to be based down at Heathrow, and its main topic is data center engineering. Now that addresses children from the ages of 14 through to 18, and then of course there's some pathways therefore open to them. But in fact we've got to go further back we've got to really start to get children to understand STEM, because ultimately you know we're a STEM industry so we've really got to encourage them and of course this then links in really closely with diversity in all in all factors, because if we get the STEM message right in at schools, where they might be deprived there is not just the, you know, not just the hubs, we can start to really address the diversity issue as well. So, all of the members of staff at CNET are STEM and masseters, we give them a number of days a year, a sort of additional time off to go and work in schools and colleges, just promote the industry. And clearly, we don't want to be going in there and starting to talk technical or trying to overdo it, but what we've actually got to do is just highlight that their digital life is run on the platforms that they could become involved in in the future to shape and develop and work and, and it's quite exciting. So, you have to obviously get the message correct, but you've got to make it interesting enough to draw those individuals into thinking STEM technology. Internet, you know, those kind of things and then this is where it all runs and hopefully we can attract people. Of course we've got to stop talking about just the engineering elements as well, because that's one of the areas because there's a huge numbers of jobs in sales, marketing, HR, finance that are involved in the data center industry as well. And therefore we've got to highlight those. So it's, you know, it's a broad brush, but we've got to do it together and we've got to encourage the trade associations, for example, around the world, really to come together and start to have a sort of a global approach to this is the messages we want to get across. Let's all do our bit. And then we can start to influence it over a period, but it's going to take 10 years. It's going to take 10 years if not a bit longer to really start to make a meaningful for difference and we will a lot of work to do in the meantime. Obviously, you know, you asked the question as what else we're doing. We've been working with the military resettlement market for the last 25 years, since we started out. And, you know, we have to work with the military the military in the UK in particular has a different approach now to its resettlement. And basically, it was a bit of a sort of a scenario where if you decided to leave the military, you won't treat it favorably. Now the military is seeing really what they're trying to do from the beginning of a military career is explained to individuals that they will ultimately have two careers, they will have their military career and then they will have their civilian career. And what we need to be doing is helping them during their military career to get the qualifications to undertake the programs, maybe to do some work placement and all of those kinds of things to start to build another partner. You know, the military won't solve the problem on its own, but it's one of those many. Sorry, I was just saying it helps a little bit. Sorry, carry on. Yes, no, it does help a little bit. And of course, you're bringing military personnel in her that have maybe already trained and operated. So the rules signals, for example, in the UK, you know, many of them have worked on data centers that maybe look a bit different to what we see in and around London and but they're still functionally the same type of beast and those individuals so we've got to look at that then we've got to look at, you know, alternative industries, but we've got to look at broader than alternative industries we've got to get our teams and our people to really understand what transferable skills means. One of the challenges I've had over the last 25 years is that in academia in education, you know, there is a whole language that many people outside of that don't understand. No difference to the data center, we have our own language we have our own accurate. The people have sometimes forgotten their own educational path and what that means and you know what a bachelor's degree actually means and then where can you see in apprenticeships or as I prefer to call them career ships, how can that fit into what we're doing and start to not look for DC skills. I think I've said many times is, you know, I get so frustrated when I see a job advert for a data center technician that requires a bachelor's degree or five years experience. You know, if we keep on asking those questions we're not going to fill the gaps because an engine someone with great engineering skills can easily work in a data center with some assistance, you know, you can't leave them on their own but we certainly can put the things in place to transfer people over relatively quickly. And but also let's not in our industry. Let's not try say we need people with certain skills when we don't understand what skills we need. And, you know, the appropriate skills and be able to find ways to identify those as well. I think that's very interesting and I guess I'm bringing thinking outside the box as well into the data center space especially such a pivotal moment that we are in with all the new technologies and how we're building data centers lately. And I mean, even with COVID the whole different kind of marketing campaigns we're going to put together. I guess the industry can really benefit from bringing people from outside the industry into our sector with the transferable skills to really help build the brand into the next stage. In terms of addressing the skills gap, we do focus very, you know, for the conversation we have here about what can we do. We are focused in a lot of our efforts on on the UK market, because every country has its own educational system has different ways of funding that education system, different ages for transferring between colleges and schools, etc. So we do focus on it. However, one of the things we do think is that things like the content or curriculum that we would be using in the university technical college, you know, we should make that freely available to other colleges, other schools and really have that out there so that people can use the same information use the same templates, so we can start to get the message across and, you know, we have started to work with I Masons quite a lot, and obviously they're offering scholarships to people coming in from other industries. So that's proving to be very, very effective. And they're certainly putting a lot of work into making that happen. And of course they're also helping address the diversity issue with the way in which they're offering those scholarships so we can we can and we do do bits and pieces around the world, but obviously, we're trying to focus that particular core element in the UK. Okay. And you've said this is going to be a 10 year journey. What do you envision in 10 years time that is in the space to be alike. Well, it'll be, you know, more automated. I think it will have calm down in terms of our own self belief. I think there is a bit too much within our industry of saying how good we are how difficult it is to get people and those kind of things. I think if I have to phrase it, I think it will normalize over a period. Yes, there will be growth. Yes, there will be demands. But I think technology will assist in that. But I also do believe that we will start to see students coming into the industry, because I think the industry is now beginning to be recognized people are talking about it as terrible as COVID has been. It certainly has highlighted in some areas, not the data center industry, but the technology that sits in the data center entries no zoom and teams and all those things and people have experienced different things now. I still don't know how it works. And they may forget it. So it is our job just to keep the message going but I think it will normalize. I think it will become more of a traditional industry. I think there will be apprenticeships and career ships that come into place. And I think some of the universities and colleges will stop just teaching it in those cases they will broaden this out and the smart building revolution as well I think will assist in the data center smart building is a data center smart building was an office block of smart building or actually are there similar technologies just slightly different purposes. So I think that's what happened over the next 10 years. But I think we will always be facing a bit of a skills crisis, because I think that's a macro economic issue, I think it's a global issue. And I think that one of the areas of difficulty is largely the funding of fe colleges and how those put together because it makes it very difficult for further education and higher education establishments, and schools and colleges to be able to fund the curriculum and keep it up to date and keep it changing. That is one of their biggest challenges and I think we again as an industry have got to look at how can we provide that curriculum across all those areas and keep it fresh and keep it moving. Would you like to see the government more involved in that because I guess they are backing some of the stem subjects but would you like to see something a bit more niche into certain industries not even just data centers but would you like to see the government more involved. I think so I think government, you know, doesn't need to be more involved and I think government has to start to really listen to industry sectors as about what they require. Certainly, you know, here in the UK, education policy over the last 25 years has changed, you know, numerous times, and sometimes you know complete 180 degree turnaround. However, I think here in the UK now with the development of apprenticeships and the new way in which they are delivered. As I said, I would prefer to them to be called career ships because now in the UK, anybody of any age can undertake an apprenticeship, and it is either nearly fully funded by government or funded by a levy, which large organizations are have to pay regardless and they have an account that they create and the money goes into that. So I think organizations as well have got to come closer to government, and I've got to start to learn a little bit more about the system that provides them the people. Often when I go in and talk into executives as I alluded to, you know, I'm talking about level five apprenticeships, level six apprenticeships and they're looking at me blankly thinking I've no idea what we're talking about. I'm not going to explain it to you know, of course, I do explain it to them but then they've got to go off and explain it to their teams and you get Chinese whispers and by the time you sort of, you get round to the the final conversation with people. It appears to have become complicated. You know, and so that's one of the things I think we've got to do is try and bring this message together that, you know, everybody that comes into this industry will have passed through academia will have gone through the education system. As employers, we've got to understand what education system can offer to us. And we've got to work closer with the colleges and the schools that are in your in your area and try to engage. I personally think that there should be, you know, a school's engagement officer or college engagement with their job is purely to keep those local schools and colleges engaged with the industry. And that would be exciting and have somebody within the organization as well that other people can go to and say to you know, explain the apprenticeships to me, tell me about FE colleges because it is it is difficult to sort of understand the whole process and what organizations can and can't do. I like the idea of the chief engagement officer. But Andrew, some people still say that we don't need to educate people outside the industry about our industry, which consequently will then bring people to work with us. And some people also say that in a few years time in a few decades we won't even need humans working the data center because they'll be AI. Just quickly, what would you have to say about those two things to people that say that. The restrictions along those lines are incredibly dangerous. You know, only two years ago or 18 months ago, there were many, many people saying the office is dead. No one's ever going to return to an office ever again. Let's rip them all down. Well, you know, 18 months on people are returning to the office. I think AI, you know, will obviously have an impact. But data centers are growing. There are more of them. There are still an awful lot of legacy and enterprise data centers out there. There are clients that are moving out of Kolo back to their own facilities. There's all sorts of change. So I think, you know, 25 years from now, you know, really who knows but you know, AI is not going to remove the human from the data center on a global scale anytime anytime soon. Things will change, but then there'll be other roles other deployments. We've got to sort of the hollowing out effect, you know, maybe some roles that are replaced, but certainly with the critical skills crisis that we've got. Most people will just be moving into slightly different roles and who knows what the next edge is going to do. Who knows what the impact of local deployment and when new technology comes along. So I think, you know, it's a long way, a long way away before we don't have humans in the data centers, you know, in scale. So we've got time and Andrew, if people want to find out more about CNET, where can they go and how can they get in touch with you? Our website, which is CNET-training.com is probably the best place to go. We have all the information about individual courses and programs and schedules and detailed program overviews, but also follow us on Twitter. And obviously find us on LinkedIn as well. Alright, great place to be. Andrew, thank you so much for your time and thank you our viewers as well for tuning into JSA TV and JSA Podcasts and don't forget to check our social media channels for more content. Until next time, happy networking. Thank you.