Everyone is asking whether there is enough power for the data center boom. A quieter question is whether there are enough experienced people to build it.
During my job search, data center roles kept appearing. I would open a posting and read through the requirements, trying to understand what employers needed and where my experience might fit. Again and again, I found myself wondering: How many people have actually built several of these projects?
The question stayed with me because data centers are expanding quickly, but it takes time to build experience delivering them. The challenge is not simply finding people who can manage construction. It is finding experienced people who can lead technically complex work at a pace the industry has rarely had to sustain.
A 2026 workforce survey by the Associated General Contractors of America and NCCER found that 82% of construction firms had openings for salaried positions. Among firms with salaried openings, 87% said those positions were as hard or harder to fill than the year before. Among firms that had worked on data center projects, 58% reported increased competition for skilled workers and 49% reported increased wage pressure. The survey covers construction broadly; it does not measure a specific shortage of data center project managers. It does show that the hiring pressure reaches beyond the trades and into professional roles. Associated General Contractors of America
Turner & Townsend’s 2026 Global Construction Market Intelligence report found that more than 70% of 112 global markets had tightening or overstretched data center contractor capacity. Investment is moving quickly. The workforce and delivery capacity behind it are already under strain.
Experienced data center project managers are in demand
The first pressure is competition for people who have already learned how to deliver complex projects. When one contractor hires an experienced project manager from another data center firm, it fills a vacancy. But the industry has not gained another experienced project manager. One team has acquired capacity while another may have lost it.
That competition reaches beyond data center contractors. Hospitals, commercial projects, and other sectors also need experienced project managers, engineers, and subcontractors. As employers compete for the same people, specialists may gain negotiating power and wages may rise. The AGC and NCCER findings on wage pressure give that competition a cost, even if the survey cannot tell us where each worker will go.
For someone reading a job description, this pressure feels personal. Employers want confidence that a new hire can perform in a demanding environment, and prior data center experience is an easy way to signal that confidence. Yet if every employer looks for people who have already done the work, the same experienced group will be asked to serve an expanding number of projects.
Healthcare construction experience can transfer
The second pressure is deciding where else to look. During my search, I kept thinking about how much of my healthcare capital experience involved the kind of judgment these projects require: coordinating specialist teams, managing changes, questioning system dependencies and understanding how construction decisions affect operations.
A hospital is not a data center. The systems, technical requirements and performance expectations are different. But there is a difference between needing to learn a new sector and having no relevant experience at all. People who have delivered complex facilities may bring skills that transfer, even as they learn the specifics of data center construction.
That distinction matters for employers and job seekers. Transferable experience is not identical experience. A strong candidate needs to show what they have managed, how they have handled cost, schedule, and change, and what they understand about operational consequences. Employers, in turn, need to identify which technical requirements must be known on day one and which can be taught.
Data center workforce training is part of delivery
The third pressure is what happens after someone makes the move. Hiring an experienced person from an adjacent sector only works if the employer can help that person learn the technical requirements of the new environment. Hiring junior staff requires that investment too. A résumé cannot replace time spent building knowledge and judgment.
The industry can continue competing for people who have already delivered data centers, moving them from one firm to another. Or it can widen the pool by developing new talent and giving experienced professionals from related sectors a path into the work.
That takes effort. Project teams are under pressure to move quickly, and training someone during a complex project can feel like one more demand on already busy leaders. But recruitment alone cannot solve a capacity problem if every company is searching the same small pool. The ability to teach may become part of the ability to deliver.
I understand why job postings ask for data center experience. The projects are technically demanding, the schedules are intense, and owners need people who can recognize problems before they become expensive. Still, reading those requirements made me wonder how the industry expects the next group of experienced people to emerge.
The people who have built these projects are valuable. So are professionals who bring hard-won experience from another complex sector and are willing to learn what comes next. The question is whether employers will make room for that learning while demand keeps growing.
Everyone is asking whether there is enough power for the data center boom. Who is asking whether there are enough experienced people to build it?