Africa’s data centre industry is booming, yet it faces a severe talent crisis. The market is young, training is inaccessible, and most available courses are either unaffordable, irrelevant to Africa, or lack local certification. Existing recruitment models often lead to poaching and recycling the same limited talent pool.
Young people across the continent are eager for opportunity, but the bridges between them and these high-growth industries are broken. As digital infrastructure accelerates, the urgency for workforce development becomes critical.
In response to Africa’s growing digital infrastructure demands and the widening talent gap in the data centre (DC) sector, a new ground-breaking initiative is being launched to develop a local and future-ready workforce for the continent. This pioneering project, born out of a collaboration between industry experts, training providers, and placement specialists, will build Africa’s first scalable data centre talent pool, sourced, trained, certified, and placed in jobs.
The Africa Data Centre Talent Project aims to build a training and placement model that addresses:
Join the Data Centre Africa Skills Study and make sure your voice helps shape the future of the industry. By completing the survey, you’ll get early access to industry-wide results and insights, plus a direct line to the future talent pool.
We are calling all data centres in Africa to participate in our discovery process. Take the survey →
By participating, you'll help us to;
We are a trusted, accredited South African tuition provider offering globally recognised finance and business professional qualifications since 2006.
With expertise in occupational training, we deliver online and classroom learning across Africa, working with peer colleges to expand our footprint across the continent.
This initiative is powered by the Digital Investment Facility (DIF).
What is this project about?
To address the lack of talent in the data centre sector, a few key players came together to see how they can increase the talent pool. In Africa, nearly 60% of the population is under 25 years old. Still, data centres in Africa are facing a workforce challenge.
The problem is multi-faceted. Available training is expensive and euro centric. Access to training is hindered due to high certification cost, euro centric content, low digital skills and limited availability of computers and connectivity. Because the sector is quite new, there isn't a high awareness of the great career opportunities a data centre can offer.
This project aims to build a training and placement model that addresses:
Who is leading this project?
The Africa Data Centre Skills Study is backed by the Digital Investment Facility (DIF), Africa Data Centres Association (ADCA), and led by IBTC, alongside talent specialists DC Elite (specialist placement agent) and curriculum advisors like Lee Perrin at CBRE.
How can I get involved or find out more?
There are a lot of ways in which you can get involved. Whether you offer DC courses, student tours, offer workplace opportunities or looking for a speaking slot at our next event. We would love for you to be involved.
Completing the survey is vital to help us better understand the problem and identify suitable solutions.
If you want to find out more, email our CEO, Nikki Maritz at [email protected] for more information.