Uptime Institute have just released their 2024 Data Center Staffing and Recruitment Survey. Conducted in August this year, the survey had a total of 857 respondents and showed some interesting trends. 

Here are the six key takeaways from the Data Center Staffing and Recruitment Survey: 

1. Increasing in hiring

Data centres continue to expand their hiring, with new roles being added at a consistent rate. When asked the question: “How would you characterise the number of new hires in your organisation’s data centre(s) at this point in 2024 compared with the same point in 2023?”, 35% said that there were more hires, and 45% said there were the same number of hires.

2. Higher salary spending

57% of organisations reported an increase in salary spending, while only 6% have reduced it. 

3. Operations roles had largest increases in salary-related spending

Operations management and junior/mid-level operations roles showed the largest rise in salary-related spending, while design and cabling/IT showed the smallest rise in salary-related spending.

4. Temporary and contract growth

Junior and mid-level roles are increasingly filled by temporary or contract workers. On the other hand, senior management and design roles are the least likely to be filled by temporary or contract workers.

5. Decline in new entrant programmes

There’s a year-over-year decrease in initiatives to hire entry-level employees. 

6. Mentorship decline

Fewer organisations are offering mentorship programs for data centre employees. In 2023, 60% of organisations had a formal mentoring programme in place for data center employees. In 2024, this number has reduced to 51%.

DC Digest

Recent data centre news:

• Weekly Data Centre Digest – 17th January 2025
• DataX Connect Launches Sister Brand Data eXec
• Applied Digital Agrees to Build a Partnership with Macquarie Asset Management for Funding of up to $5.0 Billion to Drive HPC Growth 
• AI hyperscaler, Nscale, to invest $2.5 (£2) billion in the UK data centre industry over the next three years 
• Weekly Data Centre Digest – 10th January 2025

Inside Data Centre Podcast