A 34-year-old electrical tester suffered severe burns after being electrocuted while working at a Google datacentre site in Belgium in March, highlighting dangers facing workers across Europe's rapidly expanding datacentre sector. The Guardian and Investigate Europe found evidence of electrocutions, disease outbreaks, squalid living conditions, unpaid wages and exploitative employment practices at construction sites across Sweden, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands. The incident at Saint-Ghislain in Belgium saw the worker, known as Sandu, exposed to 400 volts and 12,000 amps after being told electrical lines had been de-energised. Hospital records showed he suffered second-degree burns to his face and neck, and third-degree burns across his right shoulder and fingers, with 12% of his body burned. The local labour inspectorate closed its investigation in late October and found no wrongdoing. To date, no company or contractor appears to have been found liable.
Europe is experiencing a datacentre construction boom described as the largest infrastructure surge the continent has seen in decades, with more than 2,300 datacentres rapidly altering Europe's physical and energy landscape. At least 500 of these are located in the UK, with hundreds more under construction. At a Microsoft expansion site near Gävle in Sweden, investigators found workers crowded into living quarters with 24 people sharing a kitchen and 14 men sharing a single bathroom. Workers reported vermin infestations, broken ventilation systems and lack of heating during Swedish winters. In February, one Romanian worker tested positive for active tuberculosis, and shortly after, others living in the same shared housing showed similar symptoms. Freedom of information requests to Sweden's national work authorities and Public Health Agency revealed no outbreak had been reported.
More than 30 workers provided payslips to the investigation showing some working between 50 and 60 hours weekly without overtime pay and missed holiday pay. Days before publication, the union Solidariska Byggare, representing 70 Romanian workers at the Gävle site, brokered a settlement with contractor BenBau for back pay and union access to sites. Since 2021, Sweden's Work Environment Authority has opened 50 cases into working conditions at datacentre sites involving Microsoft and multiple Irish firms. In the UK, a general contractor died while working on a datacentre site last year, while another fatality was reported in 2024 at an electrical substation for a Microsoft datacentre. Serious accidents have also been recorded at projects in Italy, Sweden, Norway and Belgium this year.
Unions argue that Europe's push for technology sovereignty is becoming increasingly reliant on migrant worker exploitation. Dornan Engineering, an Irish company overseeing contractors at the Belgian site, said it was committed to safe working conditions and complying with labour laws. BenBau said it takes concerns regarding worker welfare, health and safety extremely seriously. Collen Construction stated it is committed to ensuring sites are safe, healthy and respectful places where everyone is treated with dignity and their fundamental human rights are protected. Representatives from Unite the Union, an Irish-UK group representing over 1.2 million workers, noted a pattern of poor conditions at Irish datacentre contractors throughout Europe.
For UK workers and businesses, this investigation reveals potential labour rights and safety failures in a rapidly expanding sector that underpins digital infrastructure investment across the country. Workers in this sector face documented risks from inadequate safety procedures, living conditions that spread disease, and wage violations that appear widespread among vulnerable migrant workers on European datacentre sites.