Michael Christodoulides
Earlier this year, we looked at the biggest hiring challenges facing the US data center market, including slow hiring processes and the gap between commercial MEP experience and hyperscale delivery.
Going into Q3, we’re seeing the electrical side of these projects come into sharper focus. Clients need people with the right low-voltage, medium-voltage and commissioning backgrounds, rather than broad electrical experience that looks relevant until the detail is tested.
At the same time, data center companies are recruiting more widely from utilities, energy infrastructure and heavy industry, while owner-operators managing several campuses need leaders who can see beyond one individual project.
What Are the Main US Data Center Hiring Pressures in Q3 2026?
- Electrical briefs need to be clearer about low-voltage, medium-voltage and commissioning experience.
- Equipment delays and compressed schedules are upping the value of people who have worked through energisation and handover.
- Utilities, power generation and industrial infrastructure are becoming more relevant talent markets.
- Owner-operators need programme leaders who can manage risk across several projects.
- Generic electrical job descriptions are producing candidates with the wrong type of experience.
Why Are Electrical and Commissioning Roles Becoming Harder to Fill?
Electrical hiring is getting harder because clients need more specific experience from a talent pool that was already tight.
In our Empiric Insights interview with Sean Mulligan, Sean identified skilled electricians, mechanical engineers and controls engineers among the roles where the supply of experienced people is falling short.
He also spoke about equipment lead times stretching to one or two years and why better-prepared owners are securing major equipment earlier in the programme.
The pressure doesn’t disappear when the equipment reaches the site - electrical and commissioning teams are often left working around late deliveries, substitutions and design changes, while the completion date stays exactly where it was.
That changes the hiring brief. Employers need people who have already worked through testing, energisation and commissioning in mission-critical environments, where there is little room to learn under pressure.
“A lot of the programme pressure now reaches the electrical and commissioning teams. Equipment arrives later than planned, but the completion date often stays the same. Employers need people who have dealt with that pressure before and know how to protect quality and safety.”
John Clements, Senior Consultant, US Data Centers, Empiric
Sean described the specialist layer of data center delivery as receiving, setting and commissioning major owner-furnished equipment, including generators, transformers, switchgear and PDUs. He also highlighted the importance of understanding the flow of power, energisation and lockout-tagout.
The recruitment point is fairly simple: employers need to know whether someone has actually worked through those stages, rather than assuming general electrical experience will be enough.
Why Are Low-Voltage and Medium-Voltage Different Hires?
“Electrical engineer” is usually too broad a brief for a hyperscale data center project.
Low-voltage and medium-voltage professionals work across connected parts of the same project, but their experience is not automatically interchangeable. The roles may involve different equipment, contractors and points in the delivery programme.
Medium-voltage candidates often come from utilities, substations, oil and gas or heavy industrial projects. Low-voltage experience is more commonly developed through critical power environments and specialist electrical contractors.
These are not rigid rules, and project structures vary. The key is understanding which systems someone has owned and what they were responsible for on site.
“Electrical experience is not one category. Someone can be technically strong and still have worked on a completely different part of the system. We need to understand what they have actually installed, energised and commissioned before deciding whether the experience fits.”
Robert Monan, Principal Consultant, US Data Centers, Empiric
This builds on something we covered in our previous market update: commercial MEP experience does not always transfer directly into hyperscale delivery.
A candidate can have a strong electrical background and still lack exposure to the commissioning standards, redundancy and operational pressure found on a mission-critical site.
Hiring managers do not need to turn every specification into an engineering document. They do need to make four things clear:
- Which systems the person will own
- Where the role sits in the project
- Whether energisation and commissioning experience is required
- Which contractors, utilities and internal teams they will work with
That makes it easier to reach the right part of the market without creating another five-page job description.
Why Is Commissioning Experience Carrying a Premium?
Commissioning is where the work completed across design, procurement and construction is tested together.
When earlier stages move, commissioning teams are often left with less time to prove that the facility can operate safely and as designed.
Late equipment, incomplete packages and design changes may have developed over several months, but they tend to reach the commissioning team at the same time.
“Commissioning exposes the problems that have built up earlier in the programme. Late equipment, design changes and incomplete packages often arrive at the same point, when there is the least time left to resolve them.”
Giacomo Gray, Principal Consultant, US Data Centers, Empiric
That is why employers are placing more value on people who have worked through integrated testing, energisation and handover.
Direct hyperscale experience remains highly sought after, but the talent pool is not large enough for every company to recruit exclusively from it.
Utilities, semiconductor manufacturing, oil and gas, pharmaceutical production and heavy industrial projects can all produce relevant people. These environments often involve controlled energisation, complex systems and a low tolerance for failure.
The transition still needs to be managed properly. Strong adjacent experience can shorten the learning curve, but it does not remove it.
Our earlier article on the data center boom of 2026 identified power distribution specialists and commissioning managers as key roles across the project lifecycle. The hiring question now is more precise: which part of that lifecycle has the candidate actually delivered?
How Is the Power Constraint Widening the Data Center Talent Market?
Data center companies are recruiting from a broader power and energy market.
Developers and owner-operators increasingly need people who understand utilities, grid connections, substations and power generation. Much of that experience sits outside traditional data center construction.
Sean discussed this shift in our interview, including the growth of on-site generation and the longer-term interest in small modular reactors. He was also clear that nuclear remains a longer-term prospect rather than an immediate answer for projects already moving through development.
The more immediate hiring opportunity sits across:
- Utilities and grid infrastructure
- Power generation
- Renewable energy development
- Substation and transmission projects
- Heavy industrial energy users
“Data center companies are recruiting from a wider energy market. Utility, interconnection and power-generation experience is becoming more relevant because projects need people who understand what must happen before power reaches the site.”
Nej Pasa, Senior Consultant, US Data Centers, Empiric
These candidates may not describe themselves as data center professionals. A search based only on direct sector experience can therefore miss people with highly relevant backgrounds.
The recruiter’s role is to test whether that experience transfers into the project, rather than simply counting how many times “data center” appears on the résumé.
Why Are Owner-Operators Hiring Programme Leaders Rather Than Project Managers?
A strong Project Manager can deliver one site. A Programme Leader needs to understand how decisions on one site affect every other project in the pipeline.
That difference becomes more important when owner-operators are managing several campuses across different states, utilities, contractors and delivery schedules.
Equipment may be shared or allocated across more than one build. The same commissioning partner or specialist contractor may also be supporting several sites. A delay in one location can therefore create staffing and procurement issues elsewhere.
“A strong Project Manager can deliver one site. A Programme Leader needs to understand how a decision on that site affects every other project in the pipeline, particularly when equipment, contractors and specialist labour are shared across them.”
Michael Christodoulides, Data Centers Team Lead, Empiric
Programme leaders need enough technical understanding to recognise these dependencies, but the role is broader than technical delivery.
They also need the commercial judgement to prioritise resources, manage risk and decide where attention is required across the portfolio.
Relevant experience may include:
- Managing several projects or campuses at once
- Building consistent reporting and governance
- Allocating limited resources across a portfolio
- Working across different utility and regulatory environments
- Understanding the wider commercial impact of delays
This is a different brief from taking a successful Project Manager and adding a more senior title.
These appointments also need to happen early enough to influence the programme. Hiring someone after several sites have already moved into delivery limits their ability to establish consistent planning and control.
What Should Data Center Hiring Managers Be Doing Differently for Q3 and Q4?
The projects moving through the second half of 2026 need more precise hiring plans.
Broad electrical briefs will continue to miss the right people, while delayed decisions will make already limited low-voltage, medium-voltage and commissioning talent harder to secure.
The organisations in the strongest position are defining the scope clearly, testing candidates against the work they have actually delivered and looking beyond traditional data center backgrounds when relevant experience exists in utilities, power generation and heavy industry.
At programme level, owner-operators also need to separate strong single-site delivery from the ability to manage risk, resources and dependencies across several builds.
Our dedicated US Data Centers team works across the full project lifecycle, from development and construction through to MEP, commissioning and operations.
If you are building delivery teams for live projects, planning headcount for Q3 and Q4 or exploring your next move in the data center market, get in touch with the team today.
Be sure to connect with Michael Christodoulides on LinkedIn to continue the conversation. You can also follow Empiric, view our latest data center opportunities and sign up for our newsletter to keep up with future market insights.
