Economic Growth - Clearstone Energy

Data centres are powering the UK’s drive for growth and productivity through digital leadership

The computing power delivered by data centres is enabling UK companies to grow by increasing productivity and enabling new kinds of research and innovation that leads to the development of new products and services.

While the inward investment triggered by each of our projects provides work for local construction companies, creates hundreds of new, skilled employment opportunities and catalyses the growth of local business ecosystems.

Design and Development

Employment begins long before a spade goes in the ground. Getting to this stage of the project requires a broad range of skills including architects, civil engineers, ecologists, surveyors and more.

At our Ebbsfleet project, local companies are playing a crucial role in designing the project, including providing accurate and fast topographical surveys using drones and identifying suitable underground cable routes to connect the project to Northfleet East electricity substation.

Construction

Building a data centre involves a diverse set of civils, construction, electrical and heating & ventilation contractors. At Clearstone, we are committed to working with local companies so that construction investment flows into local communities as employees spend their wages in local shops and restaurants.

At our Ebbsfleet project, approximately 700 workers will be employed on site each year during construction. Further, the manufacturing of building materials and data centres equipment will create further local and regional jobs.

When jobs created, wage effects and supply chain impacts are included, the scheme will support an average of approximately 1,100 jobs per year locally and generate around £60m Gross Valued Added (GVA) per year over the construction period.

Operations

Once operational, our sites become engines of long-term employment. From electrical and mechanical engineering to operations, facilities management, and security, the roles our projects create are highly skilled careers – not just jobs – with pay well above national average salaries.

Our data centre campuses also draw on support from a broad network of local partners – spanning specialist engineering, landscaping and facilities management – sustaining hundreds of jobs with local small and medium-sized businesses.

Each of our projects will create more than 400 additional permanent jobs on site, rising to 580 when supply chain and wage spending impacts are included. This equates to £43m of additional GVA per annum locally and £60m per annum overall.

National Benefits

Entire sectors of the modern UK economy depend on data centre capacity to develop and deliver services and grow. Financial services firms rely on low-latency processing to execute trades and manage risk. Healthcare is undergoing a data-driven transformation, with genomics research, AI diagnostics, and electronic health records all demanding secure, high-capacity data infrastructure.

Beyond the commercial economy, data centres play a vital role in social cohesion and the delivery of public services. The move toward digital government – online benefits claims, digital court systems, smart cities, and connected public transport – requires the robust data infrastructure and processing power provided by data centres to function efficiently and securely.