---
title: "Data Center Technician"
description: "Installs, cables and repairs the servers, storage and network gear inside data centers that power cloud services and AI."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/data-center-technician"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Data Center Technician

**Category:** Computer and Mathematical · **SOC code:** 15-1232 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 15-1232.00

Installs, cables and repairs the servers, storage and network gear inside data centers that power cloud services and AI.

Also advertised as: Data Center Operations Technician; Critical Facilities Technician; Server Technician; Data Center Hardware Technician; Data Center Engineer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $61,860 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $29.74/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $40,980 to $100,540, with the middle half between $49,000 and $79,040
- **Total US employment:** 717,190
- **Typical entry education:** Some college
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -3.5% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 39,700 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 30/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 717,190 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $40,980 |
| 25th | $49,000 |
| 50th (median) | $61,860 |
| 75th | $79,040 |
| 90th | $100,540 |
| Mean (average) | $67,330 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $80,950 | $73,657 | 3,140 |
| CA | $79,570 | $71,866 | 74,490 |
| WA | $75,220 | $70,291 | 21,860 |
| MA | $75,070 | $70,983 | 17,570 |
| NY | $72,560 | $67,234 | 39,100 |
| CO | $71,900 | $69,771 | 16,740 |
| CT | $70,210 | $67,764 | 9,300 |
| WY | $65,100 | $70,233 | 790 |
| VA | $65,040 | $64,330 | 20,910 |
| MD | $64,750 | $61,691 | 12,200 |
| NJ | $64,470 | $59,253 | 18,200 |
| MN | $63,630 | $64,520 | 15,320 |
| AK | $63,110 | $61,656 | 950 |
| VT | $63,030 | $64,344 | 1,630 |
| OR | $62,840 | $60,797 | 8,850 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/data-center-technician/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/data-center-technician.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 750,600 in the 2025–2035 base year to 724,400 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 26,200 jobs, or -3.5%. Declining: -3.5% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 39,700 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Some college, no degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 47.3% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 32.3% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 13.7% |
| First Professional Degree | 4.1% |
| Some College Courses | 1.9% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 0.3% |

## What the work involves

- Rack and install servers, storage and network equipment
- Run, terminate and label fiber and copper cables
- Replace failed drives, memory and power supplies
- Diagnose hardware faults with diagnostic tools
- Monitor temperature, power and alarm systems
- Follow change procedures and document work
- Support remote engineers with hands-on tasks

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Troubleshooting — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Telecommunications — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Conventional (C), Realistic (R), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 6.02 |
| R — Realistic | 4.70 |
| I — Investigative | 4.09 |
| S — Social | 3.31 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.36 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 91.6 |
| ISFJ | 83.7 |
| ESTJ | 80.2 |
| ISTP | 65.2 |
| ESFJ | 64.2 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Computer User Support Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-user-support-specialist) — median $61,860
- [Computer Network Support Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-network-support-specialist) — median $76,220
- [Network and Computer Systems Administrator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/network-and-computer-systems-administrator) — median $99,130
- [Computer Systems Engineers/Architect](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-systems-engineers-architect) — median $116,580
- [Computer Systems Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-systems-analyst) — median $105,850
- [Software Developer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/software-developer) — median $135,980
- [Database Administrator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/database-administrator) — median $104,620
- [Computer, Automated Teller, and Office Machine Repairer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-automated-teller-and-office-machine-repairer) — median $47,810
- [Information Security Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/information-security-analyst) — median $129,180
- [Information Security Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/information-security-engineer) — median $116,580

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/data-center-technician