AI data center jobs: Indeed postings more than doubled in two years

Hiring across the U.S. has cooled, but one part of the job market has moved the other way. Listings that involve data centers more than doubled on Indeed over the past two years. That finding comes from a July 14, 2026, report by Aubrey Woessner and Laura Ullrich of Indeed Hiring Lab.

Data centers now show up in roughly six of every 1,000 U.S. job postings on the site, up from two per 1,000 in 2023. Over the same stretch, total U.S. postings fell about 12%. Tech postings with no connection to data centers dropped 6%.

Private spending on data center construction rose 23% over the past year, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures cited by Indeed. That spending reached nearly $60 billion in May. The push to add computing capacity for artificial intelligence forms the backdrop. Indeed's count covers any posting that mentions data centers, not only AI projects.

So far in 2026, the 10 largest tech companies by market capitalization account for 71% of data center postings. The report points to hyperscalers, the companies that run cloud computing at enormous scale, as the relevant group. It describes Hermiston, Oregon, as a major hub for AWS.

Data center roles sit toward the lower end of tech salaries, though they rank among the fastest-growing ones. They tend to pay less than software engineer and developer jobs. Installation, maintenance and construction positions pay less still. Even so, data center postings for installation and maintenance work advertise higher pay than comparable postings elsewhere. Among postings that disclose pay, median advertised pay for that work is 12% higher for annual salaries. For hourly wages, the gap is 42%, or about $10 an hour.

Tech has led all sectors in announced layoffs in 2026 by a wide margin. The layoff rate in the information sector rose from 1.2% to 1.8% over the past year. The report also raises a question it leaves open: what data center employment looks like once construction ends, and whether these jobs will last.

The 10 slides below cover a selection of trends from that research, outlining what AI data center jobs look like right now. Indeed counts U.S. postings containing "data center," "datacenter" or "data-center" anywhere in the title or description. That method misses some demand and also captures roles that only mention the term. The figures reflect Indeed's user base and are self-reported.

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Job listings tied to data centers have more than doubled on Indeed over the past two years. Data centers now appear in roughly six of every 1,000 U.S. job postings on the site, up from two per 1,000 in 2023, according to [Indeed Hiring Lab](source-article).

The measure is a share, not a raw count. It tracks how often data centers come up per 1,000 postings. A higher share means data center listings gained ground against the rest of the job market on Indeed. It does not simply mean more ads went up.

That distinction matters for reading the trend. A raw count can rise when an entire job board grows. A share rises only when one category outpaces the overall mix of listings.

The share also works in the other direction. If the whole job board shrinks, a category can hold its raw count steady and still post a rising share. Growth in a share is therefore a statement about relative demand. It shows where employers on Indeed shifted their hiring attention, not how many total openings exist.

The starting point matters as well. In 2023, data centers came up in a small fraction of listings. Even after more than doubling, they remain a small slice of everything posted on the site. The finding is about pace rather than size relative to the full labor market.

Artificial intelligence is the backdrop for the build-out behind these listings. The tally itself is broader. It includes any posting connected to data centers, not only roles at facilities built for AI workloads. The growth reflects data center demand overall rather than a count of AI jobs alone.

The two-year window frames the comparison. Indeed Hiring Lab reports where the share stood in 2023 and where it stands now. It does not chart a path for the years ahead. A rising share in the past says nothing on its own about whether it will keep climbing.

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Data center job postings on Indeed more than doubled over the past two years, even as total U.S. job postings fell about 12%. Tech postings unrelated to data centers dropped 6% over the same period.

Those two declines are the backdrop for the data center figures. Employers across the U.S. advertised fewer openings overall. The rest of the tech industry pulled back as well, though by less than the full market did.

Data center hiring moved against both trends. It grew while the broader job market and the rest of tech shrank.

The comparison with other tech roles is the closer of the two. Both groups were measured over the same two years in the same Indeed postings data. Both also sit within the same industry. One group more than doubled. The other fell 6%.

That gap points to a shift inside tech rather than a recovery across the whole sector. Demand for data center work rose while demand for other tech work slipped.

Job postings measure advertised openings, not filled positions. A rise in data center postings shows that more employers want to hire for that work. It does not show how many people were actually hired.

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Private spending on data center construction rose 23% over the past year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data reported by Indeed Hiring Lab. In May, that spending came to nearly $60 billion.

The figure measures money, not people. The Census Bureau tracks what private builders and owners put into construction projects. It does not count the workers those projects hire.

Indeed places the spending data alongside its own job-posting counts. The two series describe the same build-out from different angles. One tracks dollars going into new facilities. The other tracks the listings employers publish to staff them. The push to add computing capacity for artificial intelligence is the backdrop, though neither measure is limited to AI projects.

The two measures also cover different periods. The 23% increase spans one year. Indeed's comparison of data center job postings spans two years. Both moved upward, but the numbers cannot be lined up directly.

The report does not translate the nearly $60 billion figure into a number of jobs. It does not break the spending down by region, company or type of project either. The spending figure works as a gauge of construction activity rather than a count of positions.

The measure covers private spending only. Public construction falls outside it.

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Installation, maintenance and construction jobs sit at the low end of data center pay, according to Indeed Hiring Lab. These hands-on roles pay less than other data center positions, which already fall toward the lower range of tech salaries.

That puts the trades on the bottom rung of a three-level pay order. Software engineer and developer jobs sit at the top. Data center roles as a group fall in the middle. Installation, maintenance and construction work comes in below the rest of data center hiring.

Indeed describes this order in relative terms only. The report gives no single median salary for the three categories as a combined group. It also does not break out how many data center postings fall into them.

The report leaves the work itself undescribed. It does not list the specific trades involved or the tasks those workers handle on a site. The data shows where these jobs land on pay, but not what a typical posting asks a worker to do.

The bottom-rung position depends on the benchmark. Measured against technical and software roles, these jobs rank lowest. Measured against similar trade postings outside data centers, installation and maintenance listings advertise more.

Construction stands apart in that second comparison. The report offers no matching outside benchmark for construction roles. That leaves construction placed only at the low end of data center pay. The source gives no evidence on how it compares with construction work elsewhere.

This slide falls short of the 300-word minimum. The source supports only the relative pay position of installation, maintenance and construction jobs, with no duties, trades, headcounts or construction pay comparison, and no approved web detail serves this slide's pay finding.

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Data center postings for hourly installation and maintenance work advertise a median wage 42% higher than comparable postings elsewhere. Indeed Hiring Lab puts the difference at about $10 per hour.

The comparison stays within the same type of work. Data center installation and maintenance listings are measured against similar installation and maintenance listings elsewhere. Software and engineering roles are not part of the benchmark.

That design shapes how to read the result. The 42% gap shows what a data center connection is associated with for a given kind of trade job. It does not compare data center work with tech work as a whole.

The premium appears in a lower-paid corner of the data center workforce. Installation and maintenance jobs pay less than most other data center positions. Those positions already sit toward the low end of tech pay. The hourly figure marks an advantage within a trade, not a place among the higher earners in tech.

The figure applies only to hourly listings. Salaried installation and maintenance postings are measured on their own and show a smaller gap.

The number has limits. It reflects advertised pay, not wages actually paid. Listings that do not state an hourly rate are left out. As a median, it marks the midpoint of the disclosed rates rather than the offer any single worker will see.

The Indeed report does not break the hourly premium down by trade, region or employer. It also does not explain what drives the gap. Any reason offered for the premium would go beyond what the data shows.

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Salaried installation and maintenance jobs tied to data centers advertise a median annual pay 12% higher than comparable roles outside the sector, according to Indeed Hiring Lab. The figure applies to listings that state a yearly salary.

The comparison stays within one trade. It sets installation and maintenance postings that mention data centers against similar postings that do not. It does not weigh these jobs against software engineers or other tech roles.

That distinction shapes how the number reads. Inside the data center workforce, installation and maintenance work sits near the bottom of the pay scale. Measured against the same trade elsewhere, the same type of job lists a higher salary when a data center is involved.

A median marks the middle of the range. Half of the qualifying salaried postings advertise more than that midpoint, and half advertise less. The figure says nothing about how wide the spread runs at the top or the bottom.

Salaried postings show a narrower edge than hourly ones. Indeed Hiring Lab reports a much larger premium for data center postings that list an hourly wage.

The 12% figure tracks what employers put in their listings. It is not a measure of what workers take home once hired. Postings that leave out pay fall outside the comparison entirely.

The report does not explain what drives the gap. It does not tie the higher advertised salaries to specific skills, shift requirements, locations or employers.

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Data center roles, including the Data Center Technician and Data Center Engineer titles, rank among the fastest-growing jobs in tech, according to Indeed Hiring Lab. Their pay sits toward the lower end of the tech salary range.

Indeed's report on the data center build-out names both titles among the jobs tied to the expansion. It places them within the wider group of data center roles that Indeed counts among tech's fastest growing.

Pay runs in the opposite direction. Data center roles generally pay less than software engineer and developer positions. Those software jobs sit higher on the tech pay scale.

The two measures answer different questions. Growth describes how quickly employers are adding postings in a category. It says nothing on its own about what those postings pay. A Data Center Technician or Data Center Engineer listing belongs to a category in demand. The report does not place either title at software-level pay.

The report also describes a lower pay tier within data center hiring. Installation, maintenance and construction work tends to pay less than data center roles as a whole.

Indeed's report gives no duties, salary figures or posting counts for either title. It describes where data center work falls relative to other tech jobs. It does not say what a technician or engineer earns in dollars or what either job involves day to day.

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The 10 largest tech companies by market cap account for 71% of data center job postings on Indeed so far in 2026. A small group of very large employers generates most of the demand, not the tech industry as a whole.

Indeed does not name the 10 companies behind that share. Its report points instead to hyperscalers as the category of employer that matters here. These are firms that build and operate their own large fleets of data centers.

The group is defined by market capitalization, the total stock market value of a company's shares. That yardstick says nothing about how many workers a company employs. It also says nothing about how many data centers a company runs. It sorts the biggest tech firms by valuation and nothing more.

The share also measures listings, not people. A posting is an advertised opening. The figure describes who is recruiting, not who ends up on payrolls or how many hires result.

The 71% figure covers 2026 to date. It does not span the full two-year period behind Indeed's other posting counts. That means it cannot show whether employer concentration has risen or fallen as data center listings grew.

For a job seeker, the figure describes the shape of the market rather than its size. Openings in this corner of the labor market depend heavily on the hiring plans of a handful of companies. With that much demand held by so few firms, each one's plans carry heavy weight in the overall count.

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Indeed Hiring Lab identifies Hermiston, Oregon, as a major hub for AWS. AWS is Amazon $AMZN Web Services, the cloud computing business of Amazon.

The report offers Hermiston as one example of a place tied to the data center build-out. It does not rank Hermiston against other locations. It does not describe it as the largest or fastest-growing hub.

AWS falls within the hyperscaler group that the report links to data center hiring. Its presence in Hermiston connects the town to that wider pattern of employer demand.

The report gives no job posting count for Hermiston. It gives no local pay figure. It also does not say what share of the area's listings mention data centers.

Without those figures, the data cannot show how many people work at data center sites in Hermiston. It also cannot show which roles employers there hire for most.