While data center companies promise these projects will employ lots of people, many of those jobs are for construction. Once the project is built out, there are questions about how many people work in the data center. These projects require lots of trades workers to build and maintain them, which is driving up the demand for people in those careers.

The Universal Technical Institute (UTI) in Austin has four programs preparing students to work in a variety of jobs, with a couple of those programs giving them the skills to work in data centers: welding and HVAC training. 

“After this, I’m trying to hit the pipeline,” said Jesus Segura, a welding student at UTI.

“I actually want to stick to residential and maybe learn installs and service and maintenance,” said Alan Villafranca, an HVAC student at the technical school.

The skills learned at UTI can also prepare students to work in data centers.

“Learning your basic electricity, it gives you the fundamentals,” said Dereck Granados, an HVAC instructor at UTI. “They can carry that on to data centers.”

Welders are needed to help build data centers.

“It helps by allowing people to weld up all the framework, which is your foundation,” said Grant Burkhalter, the facilities director at UTI. “You got concrete and then all the frames and you need to weld them all together, so it’s a super important part of the building process.”

Electricians are also a crucial part of the construction process, but they also maintain the data centers after they’ve been built.

“Those HVAC and the electrical background are super, super helpful at a data center like that,” Burkhalter said. “Any of that stuff is run on electricity and it all needs to be cooled, so they go hand-in-hand.”