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The data centre construction boom is drawing on the same workforce that housing construction would also need

This article has been translated from Finnish with the help of automated translation. The Finnish original is the authoritative version.

Data centre construction is growing at an exceptional pace in Finland, and YIT doubled its growth target within a week. At the same time, rising interest rates are slowing housing construction, and small and medium-sized construction companies are already reporting labour shortages. When the same limited workforce is shared between two developments moving in opposite directions, price alone no longer decides who wins the contracts.

Illustration, produced with artificial intelligence

28 September 2026 · 2 min read

At 4.30 pm on Friday, YIT's share was already trading at almost 4.3 euros, having fallen to 3.8 euros as recently as Wednesday [U11]. The rise was driven not by a single order but by an announcement about the direction of the whole company: the construction group doubled its growth target from five to ten per cent a year and now aims for one billion euros in revenue from data centre construction alone within a few years [U11]. The company is already the market leader in Finnish data centre construction with a share of almost 30 per cent [U23]. Doubling the growth target is not just an internal figure but a message to the whole industry about where labour will be directed next. The pace is fast.

In construction, pace is often measured by capacity. The term refers to how much work the industry can produce at the same time: how many sites can be running, how many concrete mixers are turning and, above all, how many skilled workers are available. Capacity cannot stretch indefinitely. That is exactly what makes this autumn's news interesting when read together.

This week, Google promised the Finnish construction industry 16,000 jobs through its investments [U7]. One new permit was granted in Pirkanmaa: a building permit for a data centre on a 44,000 square metre plot at the junction of the main roads and the main railway line, although the company has not yet disclosed anything about its electricity consumption [U22]. Analysts read the message quickly. OP raised its target price for YIT from 3.00 to 4.50 euros [U13] and SEB from 2.80 to 4.10 euros [U14].

At the same time, a different bell is ringing in the same industry. The 12-month Euribor, the most common reference rate for mortgages, is forecast to rise [U2]. Nordea's chief analyst Jan von Gerich describes the outlook as exceptionally uncertain [U3]. Helsinki has also decided to cut the long-standing 40 per cent discount on ground rents, which will raise land rent for housing companies whose leases are renewed [U18].

Are these two different markets? Can one flourish while the other freezes? Where will construction companies find workers for both at once? A recent Chamber of Commerce survey gives an indication: 60 per cent of small and medium-sized construction companies expect their recruitment needs to grow over the next six months [U15]. The shortage of skilled workers is therefore already a reality, just as one segment is urgently asking for more hands and the other is waiting for interest rates to fall before it can even start.

It is still unclear whether data centres and housing production compete for exactly the same workers. The specialist skills needed for data centres, electrical work and cooling systems, differ in many respects from ordinary building construction. Even so, they are not entirely separate labour markets, as foundation, frame and groundworks are the same in both.

The scarcity of capacity has already shown up in one tender. When Finnish Customs put the 40 million euro construction contract for its new headquarters out to tender, the cheapest bid did not win. SRV and Jatke lost even though they had pushed their prices to the bottom [U30]. When workers are scarce, price is no longer the only measure: the client wants to know who can deliver on the promised schedule, not just who promises the lowest bill.

Long-term commitments are still being made. In the autumn, SRV started a large hospital contract in Tampere worth almost 650 million euros, with the last sections not expected to be completed until 2032 [U12]. Six years is a long time to reserve workers for one site, just when data centres elsewhere are asking for the same hands on a faster schedule.

Money can buy concrete and steel. It cannot buy hours in two places at once. This autumn, the Finnish construction industry is like a vessel being filled from two directions at the same time: from one side flows the infrastructure demanded by artificial intelligence, from the other the need for homes and hospitals, which has not gone anywhere. The vessel is exactly the same size as before.

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