Working as a manager or engineer for a data center can pay off.
A recent Indeed Hiring Lab post about the data center job market showed that data center roles typically pay better than their counterparts in similar non-data center jobs. There can be work-life trade-offs, such as working nights or required traveling, depending on the role.
Based on job postings on Indeed from January to June, data-center-related roles among several job titles typically pay higher than non-data-center gigs. The median for data-center facilities managers was $134,000, 64% higher than the median for other kinds of facilities managers.
Big household names dominate listings for those jobs, as 71% of data center postings this year are from the largest tech employers. Laura Ullrich, the director of economic research in North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told Business Insider a likely reason for the data center pay premium is that these major employers have an overall reputation of paying well and offering good benefits.
If you’re looking for a 9-to-5 schedule, you might want to look elsewhere. Working nights was advertised about 40 times more often in job postings for data-center IT infrastructure, operations, and support roles than for their non-data-center counterparts. Overtime was advertised about 10 times more often for these roles, and being on call was advertised five times more often.
Cody Cole, a superintendent at industrial electrical contractor Corbins, said in an as-told-to essay that he thinks there’s going to be continued demand for skilled trades workers to help with the AI boom. Cole, who has been working on data center projects, makes more than $40 an hour and thinks there are opportunities for other young adults like him.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to New Mexico a few times and to Texas; the data centers are going up all over the place, so the work is there,” he said.
There has been backlash over data center construction. There was a national protest in July, and local residents have expressed their disdain for them in town meetings. New York State and some municipalities have implemented data center bans and moratoriums.
Only a quarter of US adults in a January survey from Pew Research Center said data centers are mostly good for local jobs, and 6% said so for the quality of life of nearby people.
Will the pay premium last? Ullrich said data-center jobs look to be mostly permanent rather than temporary, contract gigs. However, it’s to be seen how long these roles are actually “permanent.”
“That’s the part that we don’t have as much insight into, is how many employees does it take once the data center is completely built out?” she said.
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