> This is the markdown version of https://www.classet.ai/blog/where-data-center-construction-hiring-is-happening-2026 > Learn more at https://www.classet.ai ![Low-poly illustration of a stylized map surface with five glowing pins rising from it](/_next/image?url=%2Fimages%2Fblog%2Fwhere-data-center-construction-hiring-is-happening-2026.png&w=3840&q=75) # Where Data Center Construction Hiring Is Happening in 2026: Five Markets and Their Wage Premiums The five US markets with the most data center construction in 2026 (Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Phoenix, Dallas–Fort Worth, Columbus): pipeline, named projects, electrician wages, competing employers, and who is hiring the trades. [![Paul Jones](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.basehub.com%2Fe0b5701f%2F6599306507912123f90f150a8bfaaf6c%2Fscreenshot-2026-01-28-at-10.53.16-am.png%3Fwidth%3D100%26height%3D100%26quality%3D100&w=96&q=75) Paul JonesHead of Growth at Classet ](/blog/authors/paul-jones) September 8, 2026 Skilled Trades, Guides & Insights Data center construction is national, but the hiring is not. Five metros hold most of the megawatts under construction in 2026, and inside each one the same general contractors and MEP subs are bidding for the same electricians, pipefitters, and HVAC techs, against semiconductor fabs and battery plants that want them too. If you are staffing a build, the market you are in decides your wage, your competitors, and your union hall before you post a single req. Here are the five, with the pipeline numbers, named projects, wage signals, and competing employers for each, sourced. Each has a dedicated staffing page with the local licensing, training, and per-diem detail. Quick answer Northern Virginia is still the largest market (4,040 MW at end-2025, 0.5 percent vacancy, per CBRE), but Atlanta overtook it for capacity under construction in the first half of 2026 at 2,882 MW. Phoenix led US construction activity in early 2026 with about 1.3 GW underway. Dallas–Fort Worth ranks first in the world by one broker's count and sits in a state with at least 142 data centers under construction. Columbus is the fastest-growing Midwest hub, with roughly 25,000 construction workers in the New Albany business park alone. Electrician wages, competing employers, and union density differ sharply between them. ## Northern Virginia: the deepest market and the tightest labor CBRE's [year-end report](https://www.cbre.com/press-releases/northern-virginia-extends-lead-as-largest-u-s-data-center-market-in-2025) put Northern Virginia at 4,039.6 MW of inventory at the end of 2025, up 37 percent in a year, with vacancy at 0.5 percent and 96 percent of 2026 supply pre-committed. Loudoun County alone counts about 233 data center buildings built or under construction and has not gone a day without data center construction in more than 14 years, per [Loudoun Economic Development](https://loudounpossible.com/data-centers). Projects under construction include EdgeCore's 114 MW Sterling campus (topped out September 2025, $1.5 billion in financing), Vantage's 206 MW six-building VA1 in Ashburn (fifth building topped out July 2026, HITT as GC), Penzance's 45 MW Chantilly build for AWS (Whiting-Turner), and Amazon's planned 805,000-square-foot campus on the former GWU Ashburn site. GCs and electrical subs with named local work: HITT, DPR, Clark, Whiting-Turner, Holder, Rosendin, and Power Solutions, whose general foreman ran a 250-plus electrician crew on one Loudoun site. Wages are the highest of the five. IBEW Local 26 journeymen earn about $59.50 an hour, per [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/03/02/ai-data-centers-electrician-shortage-gen-z-training-careers/), and the local does close to 97 percent of the region's data center electrical work. Virginia's electrician median is $62,900 (BLS, May 2025). The labor is the tightest: Local 26 has roughly doubled since 2018 and still cannot fill calls, and the county is weighing a moratorium on new applications this month. Details on the [Northern Virginia data center staffing page](/use-cases/data-centers/northern-virginia). ## Atlanta: the new construction leader CBRE's [H1 2026 report](https://www.cbre.com/insights/books/north-america-data-center-trends-h1-2026) put Atlanta at 2,882 MW under construction, up 52 percent year over year and, for the first time, more than Northern Virginia. Vacancy sat at 1 percent in March, and a Georgia state audit counted [28,350 data center construction jobs](https://capitol-beat.org/2026/01/state-report-says-data-centers-a-boon-to-economy-despite-tax-giveaway/) in 2025 against 5,471 permanent ones. The projects are enormous. QTS's Fayetteville campus runs about 8,000 workers at peak by the county administrator's count. Coweta County approved the 900 MW "Project Sail" in April. Microsoft is building in Palmetto, East Point, and Union City; AWS committed $11 billion across Butts and Douglas counties; Google announced $8 billion for LaGrange. IBEW Local 613's dispatch board in early September showed 55 open calls seeking about 354 hands, most of them data center work, with Cleveland Electric, Inglett & Stubbs, and Uptime Electric among the contractors. Brasfield & Gorrie and Atlanta-based Holder are the GCs to know. Wages run below Virginia: Local 613 journeymen are at $38.65 an hour base, and Georgia's electrician median is $58,320. Competition for the same trades comes from Hyundai's battery plant in Bartow County, Rivian's restarted plant in Social Circle, and Georgia Power's Plant Yates expansion. Details on the [Atlanta data center staffing page](/use-cases/data-centers/atlanta). ## Phoenix: fabs and data centers in the same labor pool Phoenix led US construction activity in early 2026 at about 1.3 GW underway, per [Area Development](https://www.areadevelopment.com/data-centers/q1-2026/2026-data-center-outlook-what-actually-changes-next.shtml), with JLL counting 4,154 MW planned, second in the country. Named builds include Prime Data Centers' $3 billion, 240 MW Avondale campus (ARCOMurray), Stream's 280 MW Goodyear campus, Aligned's 72 MW Glendale build, EdgeCore's $1.9 billion Mesa campus (Holder), and Meta's $1 billion Mesa data center (DPR, Rosendin). Microsoft added 100 acres to its Goodyear holdings. What makes Phoenix different is the competition. TSMC's Arizona investment has grown to $265 billion with a fourth fab and a packaging plant under construction, Intel's Fab 62 in Chandler is targeted for 2028, and both hire the same electricians and pipefitters. Arizona has no statewide journeyman license (the Registrar of Contractors licenses firms), so screening has to verify experience directly. Arizona's electrician median is $61,060; Phoenix journeymen typically place at $32 to $38 an hour. IBEW Local 640 has about 2,300 members, small for the volume. Summer heat adds a scheduling variable no other market has. Details on the [Phoenix data center staffing page](/use-cases/data-centers/phoenix). ## Dallas–Fort Worth: the largest by one count, in the state with the most builds Texas has at least [142 data centers under construction](https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/08/texas-data-centers-sales-tax-break-billion-dollars/), more than any state, and Cushman & Wakefield ranked Dallas–Fort Worth the number one data center market in the world in mid-2026, with JLL counting 4,587 MW operational and 3,202 MW under construction, per [Dallas Innovates](https://dallasinnovates.com/dallas-fort-worth-dethrones-virginia-as-the-worlds-top-data-center-market/). Named builds: DataBank's 480 MW Red Oak campus (Rogers-O'Brien, $2 billion construction loan), Compass's 360 MW Red Oak plans, QTS's Irving expansion, Aligned's Plano build, CyrusOne's Fort Worth campus, and Meta's five-building Fort Worth site (DPR). Texas licenses electricians statewide through TDLR and has been widening reciprocity, adding Alabama and Iowa in 2026, which matters because the state's contractors are growing on travelers: CEC Facilities Group in Irving is scaling from about 2,200 toward 4,000 employees. The Texas Workforce Commission projects North Texas needs about 3,000 additional electricians by 2032. Data center projects pay around $35 an hour against $20 at small homebuilders, per the Texas Tribune, and the Mike Rowe $240,000-to-$280,000 electricians were in Plano; Texas's electrician median is $58,570. Competing employers include Texas Instruments' Sherman fab and the Stargate campus in Abilene, which is pulling 9,000 construction workers from the same statewide pool. Details on the [Dallas–Fort Worth data center staffing page](/use-cases/data-centers/dallas-fort-worth). Houston, for readers searching data center jobs there, is a smaller data center market but one of four pilot cities for Meta's $115 million workforce academy, and its industrial electricians are the pool DFW and Abilene recruit from. ## Columbus: the Midwest's fastest ramp Central Ohio has no tier-one broker MW total, but the facility counts tell the story: about 114 data centers around Columbus, roughly 25,000 construction workers in the New Albany business park across 40 completed and 28 planned facilities, per [News 5 Cleveland](https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/ohios-data-center-boom-really-started-in-new-albany-we-went-there-to-see-what-it-looks-like), and a University of Virginia analysis counting about 22,300 construction jobs against 4,500 permanent statewide. Meta is planning a gigawatt-scale campus in New Albany, AWS has raised its Ohio commitment to $23.8 billion, Vantage is building a $2 billion, 192 MW campus (Turner), Cologix plans an 800 MW campus in Johnstown, and Microsoft resumed its Licking County builds in early 2026. Ohio licenses electrical contractors, not journeymen, through OCILB. IBEW Local 683 pays journeymen $40.50 an hour base and has doubled its apprenticeship to 600 with a target of 1,000. Ohio's electrician median is the highest of the five states at $64,700. Competing programs: Intel's Ohio One fab (now targeting 2030), the Honda-LG battery plant in Jeffersonville, and Anduril's Arsenal-1. Meta chose Columbus as a pilot for its workforce academy because, in one partner's words, the shortage there was "almost at crisis level" before the boom. Details on the [Columbus data center staffing page](/use-cases/data-centers/columbus). ## The five at a glance Market Under construction Electrician median (BLS, May 2025) Union scale (journeyman) Main competing employers Northern Virginia 4,040 MW inventory; supply 96% pre-committed $62,900 IBEW 26: $59.50/hr Dominion, Inova hospitals, Micron Atlanta 2,882 MW (CBRE H1 2026) $58,320 IBEW 613: $38.65/hr Hyundai–SK battery, Rivian, Georgia Power Phoenix ~1.3 GW (Area Development Q1 2026) $61,060 IBEW 640: est. ~$47/hr TSMC, Intel, APS/SRP Dallas–Fort Worth 3,202 MW (JLL H1 2026) $58,570 IBEW 20: ~$40.65/hr Texas Instruments, Stargate Abilene Columbus ~25,000 workers at New Albany $64,700 IBEW 683: $40.50/hr Intel Ohio One, Honda-LG, Anduril Union scale figures are from local wage sheets and reporting collected in our market research; Phoenix's is a Glassdoor estimate because Local 640 does not publish its sheet. The wage premium for data center work over each state's median is the number to watch: it is the gap a contractor has to close to pull a journeyman off a hospital or a fab. ## What the markets share Different wages, different halls, same problem. In all five, the journeyman who applies to a data center posting is employed, applied to two other sites the same week, and takes the first real conversation. The contractor who reaches them the night they apply, asks about license, voltage class, travel, and per diem, and has a superintendent call back with numbers the next morning wins the crew in Ashburn and in Avondale alike. That first conversation is what Joy runs for data center contractors in every one of these markets; the mechanics are on the [data center hiring page](/use-cases/data-centers), and the broader case for AI screening on construction crews is in our post on [AI recruiting for construction](/blog/ai-recruiting-construction). ## Common questions Which US city has the most data center construction in 2026? Atlanta leads by capacity under construction, at 2,882 MW in the first half of 2026 according to CBRE, up 52.3 percent year over year and overtaking Northern Virginia for the first time. The answer changes with the measure, though. Northern Virginia remains the largest market by installed inventory at about 4,040 MW with vacancy at 0.5 percent. Dallas–Fort Worth ranks first in the world by Cushman & Wakefield's count, with JLL tallying 4,587 MW operational and 3,202 MW under construction. Phoenix led all US markets in construction activity in early 2026 at roughly 1.3 GW underway. For a contractor deciding where crews are scarcest, the more useful figure is vacancy: every one of these markets sits at or below 1.4 percent, which is why all five are bidding for the same electricians. Where are data center electricians paid the most? Northern Virginia, where IBEW Local 26 journeymen earn about $59.50 an hour and the state electrician median is $62,900. Ohio has the highest state median of the five at $64,700. Texas and Georgia medians are lower ($58,570 and $58,320), but data center projects there pay well above local construction rates, and travelers add per diem on top. Are there data center jobs in Dallas? Yes, at volume. JLL counts 3,202 MW under construction in Dallas–Fort Worth against 4,587 MW already operational, and Cushman & Wakefield ranked the metro the number one data center market in the world in mid-2026. Texas has at least 142 data centers under construction statewide, more than any other state, according to the Texas Tribune. The Texas Workforce Commission projects Dallas, Tarrant, and North Central Texas need about 3,000 additional electricians by 2032, with more than 1,000 electrician openings a year in the Dallas region alone. Named builds hiring now include DataBank's 480 MW Red Oak campus with Rogers-O'Brien as general contractor, Compass Red Oak, QTS Irving, Aligned Plano, CyrusOne Fort Worth, and Meta's five-building Fort Worth site with DPR. Are there data center jobs in Columbus, Ohio? Yes. The New Albany International Business Park alone has drawn roughly 25,000 construction workers across 40 completed data centers and 28 more planned or under construction. Meta is planning a gigawatt-scale campus there, AWS has raised its Ohio commitment to $23.8 billion, Vantage is building a $2 billion 192 MW campus with Turner as general contractor, and Cologix plans an 800 MW campus in Johnstown. A University of Virginia analysis counted about 22,300 data center construction jobs in Ohio against roughly 4,500 permanent ones. IBEW Local 683 has grown its apprenticeship from 200 to 600 registered apprentices with a target of 1,000, and Meta selected Columbus as a pilot city for its $115 million America's Workforce Academy, graduating first cohorts in August 2026. Are there data center jobs in Atlanta? Yes, and the market is growing fastest of the five. CBRE put Atlanta at 2,882 MW under construction in the first half of 2026, up 52.3 percent year over year and ahead of Northern Virginia for the first time. A Georgia state audit counted 28,350 data center construction jobs in 2025 against 5,471 permanent ones. IBEW Local 613's dispatch board in early September 2026 showed 55 open calls seeking about 354 hands, most for data center work in Fayetteville, Cartersville, South Fulton, and Union City, with Cleveland Electric, Inglett & Stubbs, and Uptime Electric among the contractors staffing them. QTS Fayetteville runs about 8,000 workers at peak by the county administrator's count, and Coweta County approved the 900 MW Project Sail in April 2026. ## Key points - Northern Virginia is the largest market and the tightest labor; Atlanta now leads capacity under construction; Phoenix leads construction activity; DFW is largest by one count; Columbus is the fastest Midwest ramp. - Electrician medians range from $58,320 (Georgia) to $64,700 (Ohio); union scale from $38.65 (Atlanta) to $59.50 (Northern Virginia). - Every market competes with fabs, battery plants, or utilities for the same trades. - Licensing differs: statewide journeyman licenses in Virginia and Texas; contractor-only licensing in Arizona, Ohio, and Georgia. - In all five, the contractor who reaches an applying journeyman first wins the crew. ## Next steps Pick your market's page for licensing, training, and per-diem detail, or [see how Joy screens applicants](/demo) in any of them. [![Paul Jones](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.basehub.com%2Fe0b5701f%2F6599306507912123f90f150a8bfaaf6c%2Fscreenshot-2026-01-28-at-10.53.16-am.png%3Fwidth%3D100%26height%3D100%26quality%3D100&w=128&q=75) Paul Jones Head of Growth at Classet Paul comes from an operator background running an Alpine-owned company, and brings firsthand experience with the hiring challenges Classet was built to solve. He's driven by a belief that the right technology can make meaningful work more accessible. ](/blog/authors/paul-jones) Follow Classet in Google Add classet.ai as a preferred source and our hiring research is more likely to show up in your Top Stories and AI Overviews. 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