What Datacenter People does

Datacenter People is a niche recruitment firm specializing in permanent placements, contract and interim staffing, executive search, and end-to-end project resource solutions for the global data center and cloud infrastructure industry. Founded in 2010 by Peter Hannaford, who brought over 40 years of sector experience, the firm is headquartered in London with regional offices in Clearwater, USA (Americas) and Singapore (Asia Pacific), and operates consultant networks across EMEA, the Americas, and Asia Pacific. Steve Brown has served as Chief Executive Officer since 2012, and the firm completed a management buyout in January 2020.

The company serves data center operators and owners (colocation, hyperscale, enterprise), construction and engineering firms, infrastructure suppliers (power, cooling, network, software), and to a lesser extent investors, real estate companies, and cloud service providers. Named customers include Digital Realty, Iron Mountain, Vertiv, Schneider Electric, Siemens, CBRE Data Centre Solutions, CapitaLand, AirTrunk, maincubes, Legrand, Vantage Data Centers, Compass Datacenters, and Cushman & Wakefield, covering more than 40 visible enterprise relationships. Revenue is generated entirely through professional-services fees tied to placements rather than any software or subscription product.

The underlying technology consists of a recruitment platform and candidate database rather than a differentiated software product. The strategic partnership with CNet Training (announced November 2019) integrates the CCAM (Certified Data Centre Audit Professional) tool for candidate pre-assessment, providing a workflow differentiator through certification validation. The firm employs 11-50 staff and currently lists 44 active vacancies spanning design and build, operations and engineering, and sales and marketing roles across 12 countries.

Name

Datacenter People

Legal name

Datacenterpeople Limited

Website

https://datacenterpeople.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2012

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Datacenter People is a UK-based niche recruitment firm providing permanent placement, contract staffing, executive search, and project resource solutions exclusively to the global data center and cloud infrastructure industry, operating from London, Clearwater, and Singapore.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

London

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Permanent Placement: Contingency or retained search fees for placing candidates in permanent roles across the data center industry spectrum from plant room to board room positions.
2. Contract and Interim Staffing: Staff augmentation services providing data center professionals for specialist roles in design engineering, construction, project management, and ICT on a contract basis.
3. Executive Search: C-Level and senior leadership recruitment requiring discrete, confidential discussions with intimate industry knowledge and network contacts.
4. Project Resource Solutions: End-to-end talent acquisition for project teams including building and commissioning new data centers or mobilizing engineering teams into live operations.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Datacenter People is a specialist recruitment firm exclusively focused on the data center and cloud infrastructure sectors. It provides permanent placements, contract and interim staffing, executive search, and end-to-end project resource solutions, sourcing professionals ranging from plant room technicians to C-level executives for data center operators, construction firms, and infrastructure suppliers worldwide.

Product overview

Datacenter People is a recruitment services company, not a product company. It does not offer a software product, platform, or modular portfolio. Its offerings consist of staffing and talent acquisition services including permanent placement, contract/interim staffing, executive search, and project resource solutions, covering roles across the data center and cloud infrastructure sectors (executive leadership, sales and marketing, design and build, operations and engineering, ICT, data center transformation, and cloud engineering).

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Permanent Placement Contingency or retained search fees for placing candidates in permanent roles across the data center industry, from plant room to board room positions. Targets data center operators, construction firms, and infrastructure suppliers.
• Contract and Interim Staffing Staff augmentation providing data center professionals for specialist roles in design engineering, construction, project management, and ICT on a contract basis, with ability to assemble and deploy teams globally within days.
• Executive Search C-Level and senior leadership recruitment requiring discrete, confidential discussions with intimate industry knowledge and network contacts, delivered by specialist consultants.
• Project Resource Solutions End-to-end talent acquisition for project teams including building and commissioning new data centers or mobilizing engineering teams into live operations, covering the full project lifecycle.

Quantifiable outcome

• Successfully placed operations engineering team ahead of schedule for maincubes Berlin data center with March 2025 go-live date
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers11 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• CNet TrainingcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 4 November 2019Datacenter People announced a strategic agreement with CNet Training to introduce their CCAM (Certified Data Centre Audit Professional) tool for pre-assessment of candidates. An industry first for leading recruitment companies, enabling better candidate matching through professional certification validation.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Nigel Frank International: Specialist technology recruitment firm focused on Microsoft, cloud and enterprise infrastructure ecosystems. Closely comparable to Datacenter People as a niche technology vertical recruiter serving enterprise and cloud infrastructure hiring with a consultant-led model.
• Jefferson Frank: Specialist recruiter focused on AWS, cloud and data/infrastructure technologies. Operates the same niche vertical-recruiter playbook as Datacenter People, pairing deep technical domain knowledge with global permanent and contract placement coverage.
• Glocomms: Technology, digital and infrastructure specialist recruiter with global offices. Comparable to Datacenter People through its focus on placing technical and leadership talent into enterprise infrastructure, cloud and emerging-tech environments.

Broad incumbents

• Akkodis: Global engineering and digital talent services firm with a broad portfolio spanning aerospace, automotive, energy and technology. Comparable as a large-scale incumbent staffing competitor that increasingly serves data center, cloud and infrastructure engineering hiring.
• Insight Global: Large-scale staffing and managed services provider with significant IT and infrastructure placement capabilities. Competes with Datacenter People on contract and permanent technology infrastructure hiring, particularly in the US market.
• Robert Half: Established global staffing firm with dedicated technology and engineering practices. Comparable as a broad incumbent whose generalist scale and brand compete for the same enterprise data center and infrastructure hiring budgets.
• Hays: Global recruitment firm with deep technology, construction and property/infrastructure practices. Relevant as a broad incumbent that increasingly places data center and mission-critical facilities talent, particularly across EMEA.
• Michael Page: Large global professional recruitment group with technology and property/infrastructure divisions. Comparable to Datacenter People as an incumbent that captures mid-to-senior data center, facilities and infrastructure placements.
• Computer Futures: Technology recruitment specialist within the SThree group, focused on enterprise IT, cloud and infrastructure hiring. Overlaps with Datacenter People on cloud engineering, infrastructure and enterprise data platform talent placement.
• Phaidon International: Global specialist recruitment firm operating across technology, life sciences and infrastructure verticals. Comparable to Datacenter People as a multi-vertical specialist recruiter with infrastructure and engineering practice overlap.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/data-center-people
• Xx.com/dcglobalsearch

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles15 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Datacenter People