Uptime Institute’s 2025 Global Data Center Survey found nearly two-thirds of operators are struggling to find qualified candidates, retain staff, or both.
Meanwhile, around 200,000 US service members leave the military every year, along with 180,000 military spouses. Many bring experience in leadership, logistics, risk management and mission-critical operations, the kind of skills the industry says it can’t find enough of.
A new report argues the two problems should be solving each other and asks why they aren’t. “From Service to Digital Infrastructure: Bridging the Gap Between Veteran Talent and Industry Opportunity” was produced by Louise Burrett of the Datacloud USA team, part of Techoraco, and is free to read on LinkedIn. It’s based on interviews with veterans, employers, industry leaders and workforce development advocates. Its conclusion: this isn’t a capability problem, it’s a connection problem.
Veterans don’t know the industry exists
The clearest finding is also the simplest. Veterans tend to know the well-worn post-military routes, defence contracting, government service, logistics, but digital infrastructure rarely comes up. Data centres often aren’t recognised as an industry in their own right, despite sitting underneath most of the modern digital economy, so veterans tend to stumble into the sector by accident rather than aim for it.
Even those who do find it often don’t know the support that exists to help them get in. Programmes like SkillBridge, and communities such as iMasons Armed Forces and Salute, tend to get discovered through chance introductions rather than structured outreach. The report’s fix: start earlier, before people leave the military, through military bases, Transition Assistance Programs and reserve units.
It’s a translation problem, not a skills problem
The report is blunt about this: veterans aren’t short of relevant skills, they’re short of a vocabulary employers recognise. Military titles and terminology can bury the value of someone’s experience, and hiring teams often screen on job title rather than what the person actually did.
The recommendation that came up repeatedly in interviews was to “look behind the MOS” (Military Occupational Specialty). A truck driver may have run logistics and asset management. An infantry soldier may have handled communications and operations under pressure. An aircraft mechanic may bring maintenance, compliance and asset management experience. A handful of organisations are already building skills-mapping frameworks along these lines, focused on competencies rather than titles.
Hiring systems built for a different pathway
Beyond awareness and vocabulary, there’s a harder structural problem: recruitment systems are built around specific industry experience, certifications and job titles. Veterans whose experience came from somewhere else can be filtered out by automated screening before a human ever sees the application.
There’s also a gap between what companies say and what they do. Many say they want to hire veterans, then keep running hiring processes built for traditional industry backgrounds. Certification requirements make this worse when they’re used as a stand-in for actual capability, even where a veteran has equivalent hands-on experience from service.
Cultural misconceptions haven’t fully gone away either. The report notes lingering, outdated concerns about PTSD, and a perception that military experience means rigid, hierarchical thinking, when in practice service members are often required to work independently and make calls under pressure with little supervision.
What’s already working
The report points to a growing set of programmes doing this well: SkillBridge placements, Microsoft’s military-focused data centre training, community college courses, and organisations like iMasons Armed Forces and Salute that pair training with mentoring and peer networks.
Its advice to employers is to hire for adaptability, problem-solving and leadership potential rather than direct industry experience, and to invest in proper skills mapping and internal veteran communities.
On the ground in Austin
iMasons is running an invitation-only Veterans’ Meet-Up on 1 September, 3pm to 5pm, at Datacloud USA and Metro Connect Fall connecting military personnel with digital infrastructure employers. Those interested in attending can email [email protected].
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