# Applications for commercial electrical apprenticeships rose more than 70% between 2022 and 2024 on the back of the data-centre buildout, while completion runs near 45%

Page: https://flyvolo.ai/en/changes/ev-20260710-electrician-2
Date: 2026-07-10 · Stage: Labour impact
Can this record move a task judgement? yes
Occupation: https://flyvolo.ai/en/careers/electrician

## Scope

United States, and the numbers come from several different research firms rather than one dataset — the application figure is Validated Insights, the completion rate is Mathematica, the cooling forecast is Goldman Sachs Research. A journeyman licence requires 8,000 hours (non-union) to 10,000 (IBEW), three to five years, and those are licensing rules rather than estimates. This is about the construction phase: a finished data centre needs far fewer electricians than building one does, which is the part the demand figures do not carry.

## Source

- Quartz — https://qz.com/apprentice-electrician-data-center-timing-gap-071026 (secondary source)

## What this means

Applications for commercial electrical apprenticeships rose more than 70% between 2022 and 2024 on the back of the data-centre buildout — AI investment creating construction-phase work for this trade. But the demand and the supply run on different clocks: the buildout is measured in quarters and the licence in years, so someone starting an apprenticeship because of a data centre is not going to wire that data centre. What they will have at the end is a licence that holds up whatever is being built by then.

## What it does not show yet

A surge in applications is not a surge in journeymen: completion runs near 45%, and a journeyman licence takes 8,000 to 10,000 hours over three to five years. Nobody in this record has measured wages for the people who did finish, and the cooling forecast is a forecast.

## How to verify it yourself

Ask the programme you are considering for one number: how many people who started four years ago hold a journeyman licence today. Programmes that track it will tell you; the ones that answer with enrolment figures are telling you something too. And ask whether the hours you would log are on new construction or on service and maintenance — the second kind of work does not end when a campus is finished.


More: https://flyvolo.ai/llms.txt