Women in Data Centres: Insights From AVK’s Lynsey Partlow
As the data centre industry swells with demand, another challenge remains – how to get women and young girls working in the industry.
With this in mind, we sat down with an expert on the subject and one of our Top 100 Women in Data Centres 2025, Lynsey Partlow.
As Service Director at AVK-SEG UK, one of the fastest-growing power solutions companies, it’s Lyndsey’s role to drive its service agenda forward across Europe. She ensures the company’s service team is able to deal with any client-related challenges, such as issues with grid connectivity and power usage, particularly as the company opens brand new offices in the Netherlands and soon Frankfurt.
“AVK is transforming the way the data industry connects to and consumes energy by developing innovative and sustainable solutions around the world,” she explains. “We have a fantastic service team to back up this expertise and as Service Director my job is to make sure we do that to the best of our ability.”
How has the representation of women in data centre leadership and technical roles changed during your career?
Over my time at AVK I have seen a healthy increase in the number of women working in the data centre industry at all levels, but we are by no means where we should be.
There is absolutely no reason why women cannot thrive and find a satisfying career in this rapidly growing and exciting sector. They simply need to be given the opportunities to develop or apply their skills and to embrace the industry in a way that is professionally satisfying to them and beneficial to the sector as well.
Of course, the problem we have – and the data centre is by no means unique in this regard – is that girls and young women have consistently fallen behind in terms of the numbers who get involved in scientific and technological subjects at school, college and university. The Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) programme was launched in 1984 and here we are more than 40 years later still talking about the problem.
It’s fair to say that we have moved on considerably from those days but we still have a very long way to go before we have the numbers of women that we need in data centre leadership and technical roles.
What can the data centre industry do to employ more women? What should it be doing?
It’s probably not correct to look at the data centre as some kind of amorphous body that can act on its own in this regard. A multi-faceted and collaborative approach is required by all the players in the sector.
That means data centre owners and operators, power generation companies, organisations like AVK and others that work within the industry – and then, of course, the government of the day taking a genuinely pro-active approach to the issue.
There’s been too much tinkering with this subject over several decades and that’s why we are where we are now. It should be second nature for girls and young women to be getting involved in sectors like the data centre industry but we still find ourselves having these discussions and looking around for who’s got the solution.
In a way, it’s sad but personally I’m feeling very positive because we are certainly making in-roads and there are fantastic initiatives such as FWD (pronounced ‘forward’), the Forum for Women in Data Centres, and The Leap, a collaborative programme involving over 20 organisations that are working actively to close the skills gap and encourage a greater number of women to become involved in technical industries in general.
What is AVK doing to get women and young girls interested in STEM?
That’s a difficult one because the relationship that young girls and women have with science, technology, engineering and maths goes right back to their experiences at school. It’s a shame that we haven’t yet created a situation in the UK and Europe – although some countries are better at this than others – whereby women consider a career in engineering to be as normal as one in marketing, real estate, HR, healthcare, social services, education or PR.
I’m proud of my achievements and the achievements of other women I see around me in the sector – such as Marie Chabanon, CTO at Data4, and Dame Dawn Childs, CEO at Pure Data Centres – but we are still a minority.
Apart from the Academy, where we not only support new trainees but also are committed to the ongoing professional development of existing engineers, AVK spends time in creating presentations that emphasise how the data centre and power solutions industry is one that welcomes women and represents a superb career for those who choose to make that move.
It’s acknowledged that many women have strong skill sets in IT, infrastructure management, networking and communications, AI and automation, sustainability and energy efficiency, cybersecurity and data protection and all of these could benefit the sector. While it’s difficult for companies like AVK to ‘get’ women and young girls interested in STEM from the very beginning, we are certainly doing everything we possibly can to promote the presence of women in this industry.
How is AVK addressing the current industry talent gap?
The whole data centre industry is facing the challenge of a limited resource pool when it comes to recruitment and AVK is no different.
In the service engineering side of the business our resource pool is one that certainly needs to develop. The problems stems from a historical lack of investment in apprenticeship schemes and in the broader electrical and mechanical engineering sector.
To help deal with this, we created the AVK Academy which involves a dedicated training centre that is producing fully trained and qualified engineers who are armed with the knowledge and insight they require to service this complex and highly demanding industry. It’s essentially a highly structured, long-term development pathway which incorporates academic, in-centre and in-field learning.
The Academy has been very well received in the industry because the skills gap is a widely understood problem and seeing a company like AVK take action to address the issue and turn out quality service engineers who are subject matter experts has been welcomed across the whole data centre sector.
More broadly, what should the data centre industry be doing to ensure women join and stay in the sector?
There are massive challenges ahead in the data centre industry but that also means there are a lot of opportunities out there for growth, development and changing the status quo.
AVK is leading from the front in many ways, including driving forward solutions that address the skills gap. I’ve mentioned the challenges that we all face with regard to women joining and remaining in the data centre sector and there is no denying that the task is not an easy one. However, in general, the industry needs to be more visible to schoolchildren and young people, it needs to have a wider presence in society where images of women working in the sector are prominent.
Young people are influenced by what they see, especially online, so the data centre sector needs to have a substantial online presence where positive images of a diverse workforce are promoted at every opportunity.
There is no magic wand though, and the industry cannot make all the required changes on its own. Schools, education bodies that draw up curricula, government ministers, industry leaders, suppliers to the sector, global organisations, women’s groups – they all have a role to play in making this a less male-centric industry.
Are there any industry groups or initiatives you recommend for women looking to build their careers in data centres?
At AVK, we work closely with FWD; myself and a colleague are active members of the forum.
FWD’s mission is to build a community for women at all career stages in the data centre industry, fostering an environment that empowers them with support, mentorship and encouragement to succeed. The forum aims to create a vibrant network that provides a comfortable space where women in the data centre industry can thrive by cultivating relationships and building connections.
Not tied to specific companies or driven by self-serving business interests, FWD wants nothing less than for the data centre industry to be characterised by gender parity and equal opportunity for all.
Explore the latest edition of Data Centre Magazine and be part of the conversation at our global conference series, Tech & AI LIVE and Data Centre LIVE.
Discover all our upcoming events and secure your tickets today
Data Centre Magazine is a BizClik brand
