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This article is part of our Opinions section, where we invite industry professionals to share their views on the most pressing technology questions of our time.
This year’s GCSE and A-Level results days lit up social media. Executives, industry leaders and companies flooded timelines with motivational messages to young people. “The future is yours.” “The next generation will change the world.” “Grades don’t define you – opportunities do.”
But here’s the catch: when those same young people log off Instagram, TikTok and, for the minority, LinkedIn and open job boards, they are left disillusioned. Entry-level roles still demand years of experience. Internships are unpaid or based in inaccessible locations. Promises of inclusion vanish into silence after the press release. For many, it feels like they’ve been gaslit. The industry says “you are the future,” but rarely puts its money, resources or structures where its mouth is.
I know firsthand that the digital infrastructure industry is serious about its talent pipeline; goodness knows there are enough groups, pages and posts about it on my own socials. So it’s time to move from performative to proactive action. Simple to say, but how do we actually do it?
I believe that we have to deliver on four key areas:
Unpaid internships exclude anyone without financial privilege. Fact. They can be valuable, and some companies offer them with great success. Still, they must be combined with real paid opportunities too, to maintain equality. Internships can be set on specific projects or programmes – I don’t for a second believe that there aren’t 6-8 week distinct projects that could be delivered by an intern, in almost every discipline in your organisation.
Apprenticeships, especially in the UK, are a no-brainer – you are losing out if you are not taking advantage of the UK Apprenticeship levy. The attitude to write it off as a business expense, quite frankly, is embarrassing. There are definitely organisations within the industry you could transfer this to, even if you did want to remain a performative supporter of talent development.
Have you looked at your entry-level role descriptions recently? Are there bullets on there that are truly relevant to the success of the role? Do you genuinely believe that a candidate with a 2:1 Hons Degree will perform better in the role you’re advertising for than the individual who got a 2:2 Hons Degree? We are putting up barriers to entry where there needn’t be any. Reminder, a role that requires five years of experience is an experienced hire with a salary that should reflect that. Undercutting and undermining will leave a sour taste in the mouth of job seekers.
Actual entry-level positions should focus on aptitude, potential and willingness to learn. This isn’t lowering standards, it’s building the foundation for long-term expertise. Your job descriptions and subsequent recruitment processes should reflect that, and if they don’t, please accept that you are talentwashing.
Talent doesn’t grow in isolation, and whilst many think that talent development rests with HR and people leaders, that is fundamentally not true. You don’t have to be in HR or a people manager to educate or inspire! There are schools across the country battling to meet the Gatsby benchmarks for careers education. One of these benchmarks requires “meaningful engagement with employers” – this can be an assembly, an open day, supporting mock interviews, offering insights and personal anecdotes. It’s far too easy to blame other departments for your complicity in talentwashing. There are partners who support initiatives in schools and career leads themselves who are calling out for help, but our industry is choosing not to respond.
It’s no longer enough to say “we care about the next generation”. I believe that things will change only when companies publish what they are doing. We need to share the number of new entrants engaged with, work experience programmes, interns hired, apprenticeship hires, and entry-level positions versus experienced hires. That way, companies can benchmark themselves against the best in the industry and set aspirational goals to improve their own standards. There are companies who are doing all of this, but they need to shout about it and make it a matter of public record. Transparency builds accountability.
The disconnect between encouragement and opportunity is widening. Look at your own employees and their children, are their children finding inspirational internships and apprenticeships? The ones I know and talk to are finding it too hard, not because they aren’t talented enough, but because there just aren’t enough opportunities being delivered by us. If the data centre industry continues to talentwash instead of acting, it risks alienating the very workforce it desperately needs. But take my suggested steps, and we can turn results-day motivation into tangible careers, building a future that’s more than just words.
