Talent Maps / Austin / Data Center Engineers

Austin Data Center Engineer Talent Map (2026)

Austin’s data center market now runs from Round Rock and Hutto to Bastrop and Caldwell counties. Here is what data center engineers and technicians earn, who employs them, where the campuses are and what stands in the way.

Staffing a data center project?

A talent map shows where a group of professionals works, what they are paid and who else is trying to hire them. This one covers the engineers and skilled technicians who design, build and run data centers in the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos metro area. Pay figures come from the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics wage survey (May 2025), and market figures from JLL, Avison Young, city records and company reports from 2025 and 2026. Our data center recruiters update it as new data comes out. See also our Texas data center tracker, our San Antonio data center talent map and our Austin electrical, mechanical and controls engineer talent maps.

1.7 GWCompleted in Austin and San Antonio in the first half of 2026JLL, H1 2026

0.14%Austin colocation vacancy, the lowest of the top 12 North American marketsAvison Young, Q1 2026

600 MWPlanned for Skybox’s PowerCampus Austin in HuttoSkybox

30Operating or planned data centers in Williamson CountyAustin Free Press, June 2026

4 GW+Planned at Tract’s Caldwell Valley Technology ParkTract, January 2026

$145,360Median electrical engineer pay in metro AustinBLS, May 2025

Data center pay in Austin by role

BLS does not track data center engineers as a separate job, so the table below shows the occupations that design, build and run data centers. Austin’s electrical engineers earn a median of $145,360, well above Houston’s $131,070. Mechanical engineers earn much less, at $106,690.

Role (Austin metro)	10th percentile	Median	90th percentile
Electrical engineers	$81,960	$145,360	$212,900
Network architects	$70,920	$133,710	$188,670
Mechanical engineers	$68,080	$106,690	$173,210
Network and systems administrators	$65,600	$104,520	$162,440
Construction managers	$69,740	$102,980	$169,110
HVAC mechanics and installers	$44,030	$60,820	$92,180
Electricians	$39,260	$60,390	$78,820

Annual pay. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS, May 2025, via O*NET OnLine. Data center employers often pay above these metro figures for critical facilities experience and on-call duty.

What the spread means in practice: electrical and power roles cost the most to fill in Austin. Cooling skills matter too. Sabey says 86% of the deployments in its first Round Rock building are liquid-cooled, so mechanical engineers and technicians with liquid cooling experience are worth paying for. Read our guide on how to hire data center engineers.

Who employs data center talent in Austin

Colocation operators

Sabey’s Round Rock campus is planned for 84 MW. Its 54 MW Building B is due to deliver its first 18 MW in the third quarter of 2027, and Sabey will host the Texas Advanced Computing Center’s Horizon supercomputer.

DCD counts more than 40 data centers in the wider Austin area, run by operators including Digital Realty, CyrusOne, DataBank, Prime and Rowan.

Hyperscale campuses

Skybox’s PowerCampus Austin in Hutto, a joint venture with Prologis, is planned for 600 MW on 160 acres with a private on-site substation. Round Rock unanimously approved a second Skybox building of up to 75 MW in February 2026.

Switch is approved for more than 1.5 million square feet on former Dell land in Round Rock.

Large new developments

EdgeConneX is building a $1.44 billion, four-building campus at Cedar Creek in Bastrop County, with each building up to 96 MW. The first building is expected to bring about 60 permanent jobs.

Tract’s Caldwell Valley Technology Park covers about 3,000 acres, with its first 250 MW contracted for the first quarter of 2028.

Tech companies and utilities

Tesla has deployed its Cortex AI cluster, about 50,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs, at Giga Texas.

Austin Energy and Oncor serve sites in Austin and Round Rock. Bluebonnet and LCRA are planning a substation for Tract’s Caldwell County campus that can scale to 1.6 GW.

Where the campuses are: Austin submarkets

Round Rock

ColocationHyperscale

Sabey, Switch and Skybox’s Old Settlers building. Sabey uses about 2 million gallons of water a year, about as much as 15 single-family homes.

Hutto and Williamson County

HyperscalePlanned

Skybox PowerCampus Austin and Colovore in Hutto, Iron Mountain’s seven proposed buildings near Samsung and KDC’s six-building Project Comal. About 500 MW is operating in the county today.

Bastrop County

HyperscaleUnder construction

EdgeConneX’s $440 million first building at Cedar Creek, part of a four-building campus.

Caldwell County

PlannedLarge campus

Tract’s Caldwell Valley Technology Park, planned for more than 4 GW on about 3,000 acres.

City of Austin

EnterpriseSmaller sites

Austin Energy serves 10 data centers of 1 to 20 MW each and has no known requests for hyperscale connections of 75 MW or more.

What stands in the way in 2026

A state audit of grid connections. In August 2026 Texas ordered an audit of every data center waiting to connect to the ERCOT grid, and in September it halted state environmental permits for data centers until the audit is done.
Austin Energy’s terms. New customers above 20 MW must agree to cut at least half their usage in an ERCOT emergency and pay all line-extension costs upfront. City staff recommend no incentives for data centers, with draft code changes due by spring 2027.
Local bans. In June 2026 the San Marcos council voted 4-3 to ban data centers in every zoning district, after denying a service agreement for the Mayberry project in February.
Water. Data centers use less than 0.3% of Austin’s water, and none qualifies as a large-volume customer. Expect the question to come up anyway, since San Marcos turned down a project that would have used up to 70,000 gallons a day.
Labor. With electrical engineers at a $145,360 median, power roles are the hardest to fill on budget.

The talent pipeline

ACC Information Technology Institute. Austin Community College offers a 27 to 30 credit-hour computer networking certificate over three semesters at its Riverside Campus, with more than 400 internship partners.
ACC Lockhart Center. A 20,000 square foot center that opened in January 2026 with plumbing, HVAC and other skilled trade programs.
Adjacent trades. Austin has no dedicated data center technician program yet, so electrical, HVAC and networking programs supply most technicians. See our Austin electrical engineer talent map.

What this means if you’re hiring

Budget for electrical talent. Austin electrical engineers out-earn their Houston peers by more than $14,000 at the median. Offers built on state or national data will fall short.
Hire for liquid cooling. Most deployments in Sabey’s first Round Rock building are liquid-cooled. Look for mechanical staff who have run those systems.
Plan for the commute. Much of the new capacity is in Hutto, Bastrop County and Caldwell County. Build relocation or travel support into offers.
Watch the audit. Projects still waiting on power may slip. Hire first for sites that are already connected.

Staffing an Austin data center project?

Apollo Technical has recruited engineers since 2010. Our recruiting teams place electrical, mechanical, controls and critical facilities talent on a contract, contract-to-hire and direct hire basis.

Call 512.686.1181 or see our Austin engineering recruiters page.

Hire data center talent

Frequently asked questions

How big is the Austin data center market?

Each research firm measures it differently, and none splits Austin from San Antonio. JLL says the combined Austin and San Antonio market completed 1.7 GW and absorbed 796 MW in the first half of 2026. CBRE says it passed the New York Tri-State area in inventory for the first time in late 2025.

How much do data center engineers make in Austin?

BLS does not track data center engineers separately. In metro Austin, electrical engineers earn a median of $145,360, network architects $133,710 and mechanical engineers $106,690.

Does Austin pay more than San Antonio for data center talent?

Yes, for electrical roles. Electrical engineers earn a median of $145,360 in metro Austin and $103,520 in metro San Antonio. Mechanical engineer pay is close: $106,690 in Austin and $104,620 in San Antonio. See our San Antonio data center talent map and our US data center map.

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