DataX Connect widens data centre pay survey to regions

DataX Connect has opened its 2026 Data Centre Salary Survey, expanding the study to include regional analysis across Europe and the United States.

Now in its third year, the survey is seeking responses from data centre construction and operations professionals. The findings will break down pay, benefits and working conditions by country and region rather than only at a continental level.

The move comes as employers across the sector try to fill roles in a market where demand for labour has outpaced supply. This year's research focuses on three questions from employers and hiring teams: where talent comes from, what attracts candidates and what keeps staff in post.

One new area of focus is career background. Respondents are being asked which industries they worked in before entering the data centre sector, to help identify which adjacent sectors are supplying new recruits.

That could give operators, contractors and other employers a clearer picture of where to look for staff beyond the established pool of data centre specialists. The survey also asks where people are currently based and working, which will help map talent by location.

Pay and retention

The research also examines base salaries, bonuses, incentives, benefits, working patterns and the split between permanent and contract roles. The detail is intended to help employers compare offers across roles, seniority levels and local markets.

Retention remains a central issue. Findings from the previous edition suggested that higher pay alone was not enough to stop staff considering a move: 37.6% of respondents had received a pay rise while still planning to leave.

Earlier results also pointed to rapid progression among younger workers and a persistent pay gap between men and women. According to DataX Connect, 34.6% of under-35s were already in senior roles, while women were paid less than men at every level of seniority covered by the study.

The gender pay gap was narrowest in senior roles, at 5%, and widest in mid-level jobs. Those findings have added to concerns about how the sector can build a larger workforce while also improving progression and equality.

Regional picture

Geography is a major change in the latest edition. Previous salary and benefits data often treated Europe as a single market, masking significant differences between individual countries and regions.

DataX Connect highlighted established data centre markets in the UK, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, alongside growing activity in Spain, Portugal and the Nordic countries. More localised data would allow employers to compare labour conditions across these markets when making hiring or expansion decisions.

The same approach is being extended across the United States. DataX Connect is seeking enough responses from each area to distinguish between regional labour markets rather than treating the country as a single pay environment.

That matters because demand for data centre and AI infrastructure workers is spreading beyond the best-known hubs. As projects expand into new locations, employers must assess not only construction costs and energy access but also whether they can recruit and retain the staff needed to build and run facilities.

Sector demand

The survey covers the full range of roles across data centre construction and operations. The previous study drew more than 1,500 responses from professionals in more than 20 countries.

DataX Connect said the survey can be completed in around seven minutes and that responses can remain anonymous. It is seeking additional participation to strengthen the reliability of regional and job-category comparisons in this year's results.

DataX Connect presented the project as a tool for organisations reviewing compensation, planning workforce needs and identifying new candidate pools. In a labour market where salary inflation has not always translated into loyalty, the latest survey is also likely to test how much weight workers place on career development, flexibility and culture compared with pay alone.

Last year's results showed that "Raises don't equal retention: More than 1 in 3 (37.6%) got a pay rise but still plan to leave."