Data centre pay is rising, but nearly two in five professionals still plan to move
Written by Rebecca Uffindell Wed 16 Sep 2026
DataX Connect’s 2026 Data Centre Salary Survey found that 38.8% of permanent professionals surveyed across Europe plan to change companies in the next 12 months, despite 65% receiving a salary increase over the previous year. Career development, benefits, and progression are shaping retention alongside pay, while the findings also expose disparities around gender and opportunities to recruit from outside the sector.
Pay remains a powerful lever in the competition for data centre talent, but DataX Connect’s latest salary research has suggested it is not enough to secure retention on its own.
The recruitment specialist surveyed more than 1,700 data centre professionals across Europe and the US, covering approximately 100 job roles spanning commissioning, construction, engineering, design, development, operation, and project management.
Its findings put the average permanent data centre salary at £119,000 ($160,178) a year in the UK, compared with €122,000 (£105,000) across Europe. In the US, the average rises to $175,000 (£129,000).
Yet the salary figures sit alongside a highly mobile workforce.
Some 38.8% of permanent professionals surveyed in Europe plan to change companies in the next 12 months, while 28.2% had already moved during the previous year. In the UK specifically, 38% of respondents said they were looking to move during the next 12 months.
That is despite 65% of permanent European respondents receiving a salary increase in the previous 12 months. In the US, where 71% received a salary increase over the same period, 37.8% still said they planned to change companies.
Career Progression Competes With Pay
The reasons people are considering leaving differ across the Atlantic.
Among permanent European respondents planning to move, 36% cited career development as their main reason, putting progression ahead of salary. In the US, salary leads at 31.4%, followed closely by career development at 29.5%.
Andy Davis, Director at DataX Connect and Data eXec, and host of the Inside Data Centre Podcast, said there was no single answer to the industry’s talent challenge.
“Pay is important, but so is career progression, the benefits people value and, increasingly, where the skills we need actually exist,” he stated.
Davis added that the challenge was turning that insight into better decisions about where employers recruit, how they attract people, and how they retain them.
The UK findings have added to that picture. Respondents rated satisfaction with base pay at 3.7 out of five, compared with 3.1 for bonuses and 3.3 for benefits, while more than a third were still considering moving companies.
Benefits Vary Across Markets
Compensation beyond base salary provides another point of comparison.
A total of 78% of permanent European respondents received a bonus in the previous 12 months, compared with 85% of permanent US respondents. The average bonus amount was equivalent to 16.7% of salary in Europe and 15.5% in the US.
Only 14% of European respondents currently receive shares, stocks, or equity, while 30.3% identified equity as an additional benefit they would like their employer to offer. Just under half of respondents (49%) rated their existing benefits positively, while one in five were dissatisfied.
US priorities differ. A car or fuel allowance was the most requested additional benefit, selected by 38.1% of respondents. US permanent workers also gave their benefits an average satisfaction score of 3.8 out of five, compared with 3.6 in Europe.
The comparison suggests employers operating across multiple data centre markets may need to consider regional preferences rather than assuming the same package carries equal value everywhere.
Gender Remains a Fault Line
The survey also identified substantial differences in the experiences reported by men and women.
In Europe, 46.4% of women surveyed said their gender had negatively affected their pay or career progression, compared with 1.7% of men.
Among permanent respondents, women earned an average of 5% less than men at mid-level and 22% less at senior level. Mid-level men averaged £80,000 ($107,684) against £76,000 ($102,300) for women, while senior men averaged £106,000 ($142,681) against £83,000 ($111,722) for women. Male respondents also reported average bonuses of 14%, compared with 11% among women.
The US sample shows a similar disparity. Women earned an average of 3% less at mid-level and 27% less at senior level, while 51.4% of women surveyed said gender had negatively affected their compensation or career progression.
The figures require context. Women represented only one in 11 respondents to the European survey and two in 25 in the US sample. The findings should therefore not be treated as a definitive measurement of the industry-wide gender pay gap, but as a signal within DataX Connect’s respondent base.
Davis said a lack of visible female role models in senior data centre positions was part of the challenge.
“If people can’t see a path for themselves, they’re far less likely to stick around and carve one out,” he stressed. “Closing that gap, and the gender pay gap alongside it, is vital to the future of this industry.”
Talent Is Already Coming From Outside Data Centres
Employers facing skills shortages may also need to reconsider where they recruit.
DataX Connect found 41.7% of European respondents had worked in energy or semiconductor/pharmaceutical roles before entering the data centre industry.
The UK breakdown provides a more local picture. Infrastructure was the largest previous-industry group at 17%, followed by energy at 15%. The report also said around one in eight UK professionals surveyed entered the sector without previous data centre experience.
In the US, 36.9% of respondents came from energy or military backgrounds, showing a different source of transferable skills.
For employers, the findings suggest adjacent sectors are not simply a potential future talent pool. Professionals from infrastructure, energy, and other technical industries are already moving into data centre roles.
Data Centre Salaries Are Only Part of the Picture
For professionals, the survey provides a benchmark against which to compare salaries, bonuses, and benefits. For employers, the mobility figures raise a different question.
Career progression, benefits, and access to opportunity all influence whether people stay. At the same time, the movement of professionals from adjacent industries suggests employers have options beyond competing for the same established data centre talent.
DataX Connect conducted the survey online in June and July 2026, recruiting respondents through email, telephone and LinkedIn, alongside data collected from its own placements. The European and US reports cover approximately 100 different job roles across the sector. The overall research covers more than 1,700 professionals, but the reports do not provide precise regional sample sizes, meaning individual percentages should be read as findings from the survey respondents rather than population estimates for the wider data centre workforce.
Written by Rebecca Uffindell Wed 16 Sep 2026
Tags:
data centre salaries data centre talent recruitment retention WorkforceMost Viewed News
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