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Data Center Pay Is Rising, but Turnover Remains High, Survey Finds Data center professionals are changing jobs despite pay raises, prioritizing career growth alongside salary. The ongoing data center buildout is reshaping staffing, with many professionals exploring new opportunities even as salary increases become more common. While compensation is always a concern, competitive salaries are only part of the equation. Clear pathways for career progression, benefits packages, and uneven experiences of advancement are increasingly influencing whether professionals stay or move. Those dynamics are captured in DataX Connect’s 2026 Data Center Salary Survey, released September 15. The report draws on responses from more than 1,700 professionals across the UK, continental Europe, and the US. Survey Snapshot Key findings include: - Job mobility: About 39% of permanent European respondents and about 38% of US respondents plan to change employers within the next year. - Career priorities: In Europe, career development is the leading reason for leaving at 36%. In the US, salary leads at about 31%, with career development close behind at 30%. - Gender disparities: About 46% of European women report that gender negatively affects pay or progression. - Benefits: Equity is the top requested benefit in Europe (30%); car or fuel allowances are the top requested in the US (38%). - Recruitment: About 40% of US respondents previously worked in energy or the military. “It wasn’t necessarily a single surprise, but the most interesting finding for me was looking at where we can find new talent for the industry,” said Andy Davis, Director of DataX Connect and Data eXec, in an interview with Data Center Knowledge. Raises Are Up, but So Is Turnover Nearly two in five permanent respondents in both Europe and the US plan to change companies within the next 12 months, despite widespread salary increases. In Europe, 65% of respondents reported a pay raise over the previous year; in the US, the figure was 71%. Even so, pay remains a primary motivator for many, particularly in the US. “In the US, salary is the biggest factor, which reflects just how competitive that market has become,” Davis said. “There is a huge investment going into US data centers and experienced people are in high demand, so naturally that is pushing salaries up.” He noted that salary and career development are closely linked. Professionals want evidence that their careers are advancing, not just their paychecks. “One of the big attractions of working in data centers is that it is a rapidly growing industry where you can potentially accelerate your career,” he said. “Organizations that are growing quickly can offer people more responsibility and opportunities to progress than they might get in a more mature sector.” According to Davis, those pathways must be visible and structured. Employees need to know the next step, what it takes to get there, and what development opportunities are available. “Ultimately, companies need to get the balance right,” he explained. “They need to pay competitively, but they also need to give people a reason to stay and build their careers with them.” Where Talent Shortages Are Most Acute In the US, the report highlights Northern Virginia, Texas, and Arizona as among the tightest markets for skilled trades. Journey-level electricians, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineers, commissioning agents, and project managers with hyperscale experience are particularly hard to find. “There are different pressures depending on the market and role, but the growth of the industry is putting pressure on the whole talent market,” Davis said. As demand rises, he noted, pay follows, and competition for the same experienced candidates intensifies, making critical roles harder to fill. “The bigger concern for me is the impact this could have on project delivery. At the trade level, there simply aren’t enough skilled people to deliver the volume of projects that are being planned and built,” Davis said. “We can have the power, land, capital, and demand for a new data center, but if we don’t have enough people to build it, that becomes a problem.” “We can have the power, land, capital, and demand for a new data center, but if we don’t have enough people to build it, that becomes a problem.” – Andy Davis, Director of DataX Connect and Data eXec From Energy and Military to Data Centers: The New Pipeline With the sector expanding rapidly, Davis argued that employers cannot rely solely on candidates with prior data center experience. Instead, they should evaluate transferable skills from adjacent industries. “The industry needs to get better at looking at transferable skills rather than simply asking whether someone has worked in a data center before,” he said. Engineering is the clearest on-ramp. “Energy, military, and other mission-critical sectors have large pools of technically qualified engineers who already understand environments where reliability, resilience, and safety are critical,” Davis noted. The survey suggests these recruitment pathways are already in play. About 40% of US respondents previously worked in energy or military roles, while 42% of European respondents came from energy or semiconductor/pharmaceutical backgrounds. In the UK, infrastructure and energy together accounted for 32% of respondents’ previous industries. The research does not, however, break down which specific data center roles those recruits entered or how long it took them to become effective in those roles. “There will obviously be a learning curve,” Davis said. “They need to understand the specific technology, standards, processes, and commercial environment of the data center sector. But the underlying engineering skills are already there.” Davis added that the industry shouldn’t always be looking for a candidate who has done the same job in a data center. “Sometimes the best candidate is someone from an adjacent industry who has the right skills and just needs the opportunity and support to make the move.”
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