Hiring index / August 2026
US Data Center Hiring Snapshot: August 2026
Where 62 monitored employers have live openings, which skills they need and what 769 employer-stated salary records say about advertised pay.
Published / Data frozen at 10:15 UTC
1,341
live jobs
62
employers hiring
41
states represented
57.3%
with stated pay
The readout
Three signals in the live market
24.7%
of jobs are in Texas
Texas accounts for 331 monitored openings, compared with Virginia's 150.
56.0%
Construction or technician
These two role families make up 752 of the 1,341 live openings.
57.8%
at the top 10 employers
The ten largest hiring lists contain 774 live roles in this snapshot.
These are characteristics of Data Center JobHub's monitored employer set, not an estimate of every US data center vacancy. Coverage changes can move the totals, which is why this first edition is a snapshot rather than a month-over-month index.
Geography
Texas and Virginia hold 35.9% of openings
The concentration is visible at state level: 481 of the 1,341 jobs are in Texas or Virginia. Across the dataset, jobs appear in 254distinct city-and-state combinations.
Role demand
Building and operating capacity drives the list
Construction is the largest role family at 400 jobs, followed by data center technician roles at 352. Critical facilities engineer adds another 183 openings.
Employers
The largest live hiring lists
Amazon Data Services leads the monitored set with 175 openings. The ranking measures live listings, not headcount or company growth.
| Employer | Live jobs | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Data Services | 175 | 13.0% |
| 108 | 8.1% | |
| QTS Data Centers | 102 | 7.6% |
| IREN | 71 | 5.3% |
| NTT Global Data Centers | 71 | 5.3% |
| Oracle | 57 | 4.3% |
| Microsoft | 51 | 3.8% |
| CyrusOne | 49 | 3.7% |
| IES Holdings | 47 | 3.5% |
| Fluidstack | 43 | 3.2% |
Advertised pay
What employer-stated ranges show
Employers state a salary range on 769 listings, or 57.3% of the snapshot. Annual and hourly listings are reported separately. Each figure below is the median advertised lower or upper bound within a broad role group, not median worker earnings.
Annual salary listings
| Role group | Listings | Median low | Median high |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construction | 163 | $133,000/yr | $200,000/yr |
| Data center operations | 87 | $138,000/yr | $200,000/yr |
| Data center technician | 80 | $86,000/yr | $119,000/yr |
| Critical facilities engineer | 64 | $102,100/yr | $166,300/yr |
| Commissioning | 42 | $120,000/yr | $165,000/yr |
| Logistics | 34 | $114,300/yr | $194,500/yr |
| NOC technician | 19 | $162,000/yr | $221,000/yr |
| Security | 16 | $139,700/yr | $195,000/yr |
Hourly wage listings
| Role group | Listings | Median low | Median high |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data center technician | 166 | $30.00/hr | $49.50/hr |
| Critical facilities engineer | 30 | $33.51/hr | $46.00/hr |
| Security | 21 | $20.19/hr | $28.85/hr |
| HVAC technician | 12 | $40.00/hr | $50.00/hr |
| Construction | 12 | $35.00/hr | $45.00/hr |
Pay transparency
Ads state pay far more often where the law requires it
In the 9 states that require a pay range in the advertisement itself and had live data center ads, 180 of 209 ads state pay. In the 31 states with no such mandate, 575 of 1,109.
86.1%
of ads state pay in the 9 states that require a range in the advertisement
51.8%
of ads state pay in the 31 states with no advertisement mandate
34.3
percentage points between the two groups
| Group | Live ads | State pay | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| States requiring a pay range in the advertisement9 states | 209 | 180 | 86.1% |
| States with no advertisement mandate31 states | 1,109 | 575 | 51.8% |
| All live ads40 states | 1,351 | 774 | 57.3% |
The largest markets are mostly on the no-mandate side. Of the 8 states with the most live ads in this snapshot, only California requires a range in the advertisement; Texas, Virginia, Georgia, Ohio, Arizona, Tennessee and Nevada do not.
The same employers, compared with themselves. 13 employers advertise at least 5 jobs on each side of the line. They state pay in 93.8% of their mandate-state ads (121 of 129) and 81.0% of their ads elsewhere (372 of 459). The per-employer rows are in the CSV below; they are not named here.
By state
| State | Live ads | State pay | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| A pay range is required in the advertisement | |||
| California | 75 | 66 | 88.0% |
| Illinois | 32 | 27 | 84.4% |
| New York | 30 | 26 | 86.7% |
| Colorado | 27 | 22 | 81.5% |
| New Jersey | 17 | 15 | 88.2% |
| Washington | 16 | 15 | 93.8% |
| Maryland | 8 | 6 | 75.0% |
| States requiring a pay range in the advertisement9 states | 209 | 180 | 86.1% |
| No advertisement mandate | |||
| Texas | 340 | 139 | 40.9% |
| Virginia | 152 | 116 | 76.3% |
| Georgia | 76 | 34 | 44.7% |
| Ohio1 | 69 | 39 | 56.5% |
| Tennessee | 66 | 24 | 36.4% |
| Arizona | 65 | 38 | 58.5% |
| Nevada2 | 42 | 18 | 42.9% |
| Iowa | 33 | 13 | 39.4% |
| Indiana | 27 | 21 | 77.8% |
| North Carolina | 26 | 11 | 42.3% |
| Oklahoma | 24 | 18 | 75.0% |
| Oregon | 23 | 19 | 82.6% |
| Pennsylvania | 18 | 13 | 72.2% |
| Alabama | 17 | 5 | 29.4% |
| Missouri | 16 | 8 | 50.0% |
| Utah | 15 | 3 | 20.0% |
| South Carolina | 13 | 8 | 61.5% |
| Wisconsin | 12 | 8 | 66.7% |
| Arkansas | 11 | 5 | 45.5% |
| Louisiana | 11 | 6 | 54.5% |
| New Mexico | 9 | 8 | 88.9% |
| Florida | 8 | 0 | 0.0% |
| North Dakota | 8 | 7 | 87.5% |
| States with no advertisement mandate31 states | 1,109 | 575 | 51.8% |
- 1 Ohio: city salary-history ordinances, no state posting mandate.
- 2 Nevada: range required only after an interview, not in the advertisement.
How this cut was made
- Its own cutoff: every ad live and approved on Data Center JobHub at 15:10 UTC on September 3, 2026, 1,351 ads. The edition above froze earlier, at 1,341 ads, and its figures are never revised; this crosstab records its own instant instead, and every row of the CSV carries it. The overall stated-pay share is 57.3% either way.
- Stated pay: the employer published a wage or salary figure in the ad. Ranges a job feed estimated count as not stated.
- Mandate status: 12 US jurisdictions (CA, CO, DC, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NJ, NY, VT, WA) require a pay range in the advertisement, as of January 30, 2026 per Jackson Lewis; 9 of them had live data center ads. Laws that require a range only on request or after an interview count as no advertisement mandate.
- Floor: 10 states with fewer than 8 live ads are inside the group totals but are not ranked on their own. The CSV lists all 40.
Methodology
How this snapshot was built
- Cutoff: live US listings in the Data Center JobHub database at 10:15 UTC on September 2, 2026.
- Scope: 1,341 jobs from 62 monitored employers. Closed, expired and duplicate listings are excluded.
- Roles: job titles are grouped into broad data center role families. A family can include several seniority levels and specialties.
- Pay: only employer-stated USD amounts are included. Estimated salaries are excluded, and samples with different pay periods are not combined.
- Limits: this is a census of the monitored listings, not the entire US labor market. A stable employer panel is required before reporting a defensible monthly trend.
Reuse and citation
These aggregates are published under CC BY 4.0. You may republish and adapt them, including commercially, with credit to Data Center JobHub and a link to this report. The licence covers the aggregate tables only — not the underlying job listings, which belong to the employers who published them.
Cite this edition: Data Center JobHub (2026). US Data Center Hiring Snapshot: August 2026. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22261858