Women in Data Centres: Pushing the Industry Beyond Inclusion

The “Women in Data Centres” panel at Data Centre LIVE was less about diversity targets and more focused on the operational reality facing digital infrastructure.

Held on Day 2 of the two-day event, the session featured leaders from across the data centre ecosystem. 

This included Kyndryl’s Suzanne Cockaday, Kao Data’s Lizzy McDowell, JLL’s Catriona Shearer, GEICO’s Rebecca Weekly and Yondr Group’s Eve McIlvaney.

The panel's moderator, Villie Xeni, Commissioning & Engineering Director at MiCiM Ltd, opened by saying the presence of women in digital infrastructure should no longer be seen as unusual.

“Women in data centres – it's not something groundbreaking anymore. It's normal, it's happening, and if you're not a part of it, you're probably a bit left behind,” she said.

AI growth puts pressure on talent and operations

The panel quickly moved into the wider issue facing the sector: a growing skills shortage as AI infrastructure scales at pace.

Catriona Shearer, Global Head of Data Centre Consulting at JLL Data Centre Solutions, said companies cannot afford to ignore large parts of the workforce.

“If you're not already making room for diverse people in your workforce, you're losing out on a significant portion of the available talent,” she commented. “It's pure maths at this point.”

Rebecca Weekly, VP of Infrastructure Engineering at GEICO, connected that idea directly to AI and operational performance.

“The outcomes correlated with the best revenue come from diverse teams,” she said. “They tend to look at problems from different lenses, different contexts, different backgrounds, and you get to better outcomes.”

Rethinking traditional roles

Rebecca said the rise of AI infrastructure is pushing operators to reshape established technical roles inside data centres.

She said modern facilities are relying on automation, remote monitoring and robotics rather than continuous physical intervention.

In her words: “If you're operating your data centre such that every person has to be hands-on a box to fix something, you're doing it wrong.”

That operational change, the panel argued, creates opportunities for more flexible working models and broader participation across the workforce.

Catriona shared an example of adapting a technical leadership role to support an employee returning from maternity leave, rather than moving her into a different position or changing her title.

“A lot of her tasks could be done without touching equipment, and that's true of most roles,” she said.

Suzanne Cockaday, Vice President, UKI Cloud and Core Enterprise and Z Cloud Practices Lead, Kyndryl, said organisations need more agile teams and less rigid management structures.

“The real magic comes when you cross-train,” she commented. “That's where real business value is driven.”

Alongside workforce discussions, the panel highlighted wider industry challenges linked to AI growth.

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The "AI bubble" – workloads strain power availability

Suzanne predicted a focus on data sovereignty and workload repatriation into domestic infrastructure.

Lizzy McDowell, Director of Marketing & Critical Careers Founding Partner, Kao Data, warned that UK energy pricing risks are limiting AI investment.

“We are becoming an AI taker instead of an AI maker,” Lizzy said.

Rebecca added that sustainability and efficiency are critical as AI workloads continue to increase pressure on available power. If the issue is not solved, the potential is that the "AI bubble" could soon burst.

“If we cannot solve power distribution, utilisation and efficiency, AI will stall,” she said.

A calling for more women in senior roles

The discussion also focused heavily on visibility and leadership.

Several speakers described entering the industry accidentally, reflecting how little awareness still exists around data centre careers.

Lizzy noted how visibility is one of the sector’s biggest recruitment challenges.

“I didn't know this industry existed,” she said.

“I couldn't relate to senior women in this space – if I didn't think there was a place for someone without a technical background – I couldn't have seen a way in.”

Eve McIlvaney, VP Global Procurement, Yondr Group, said the industry still lacks enough women at senior leadership level.

“The sign of true success is when we're not surprised that a woman is leading the discussion,” she said.

One of the strongest themes throughout the session was the frustration that women in digital infrastructure are still often separated into standalone diversity discussions instead of being fully integrated into mainstream technical conversations.

That point became even sharper during an exclusive interview with Data Centre Magazine after the session, where Rebecca said the industry needs to stop treating women’s expertise as separate from technical leadership.

“The opportunity to have women actually integrated into the conversation as the experts they are – I think that's a real opportunity for us as an industry,” Rebecca said.

“We'll be in a different place as an industry when that shows up in every conversation, rather than having to be considered purely for diversity and inclusion,” she said.

She also offered direct advice to women considering careers in engineering and digital infrastructure.

“Stick with it. Believe in yourself,” she advocated. “Don't worry about being different, because that's actually a great feature, not a bug.”