Indeed’s report found that Ireland is emerging as Europe’s leading market for data centre-related hiring.

A new report published by hiring platform Indeed has found that Ireland is among the countries in Europe with the most job postings referencing data centres. 

Almost 5pc of job postings in Ireland are related to data centres in some way, representing a statistic that is roughly double the figures from between 2019 and 2025, and is the highest among the 10 European countries analysed as part of the research. 

What the report shows is that job expectations and requirements are changing, as the AI build-out reshapes “where and for whom tech-adjacent jobs are being created”. 

“Data centre hiring is one of the few areas where we are seeing growth in tech-adjacent hiring at a time when wider tech postings remain under pressure,” said Pawel Adrjan, the senior director of economic research for EMEA and APAC at Indeed.

He added: “Ireland stands out particularly strongly, with nearly 5pc of job postings now mentioning a data centre, roughly twice the share we have seen in recent years. Ireland’s data centre labour market is already more developed than in most of the other European markets we analysed.” 

Data centre-related searches accounted for 0.05pc of all searches on Indeed in Ireland in August 2026, which is equivalent to one in every 2,000 searches and according to Indeed, the relatively modest recent growth in Irish searches compared with some other European markets is reflective of  Ireland’s already high level of interest. 

“Jobseeker interest is particularly strong with data centre-related searches accounting for a higher share of searches in Ireland than elsewhere in Europe, although it remains a specialist area with fewer searches than for other, larger occupations like retail or driving,” said Adrjan. “The key question now is whether this momentum can be sustained as Europe’s data centre build-out gathers pace.”

Global research indicated that between 50pc and 60pc of data centre postings in each country analysed came from just five occupations: IT infrastructure, operations and support, software development, management, installation and maintenance, and lastly, project management.

According to Indeed, Europe is attempting to keep pace with international competition in the race to build the data centres needed to power generative AI and roughly €176bn is expected to be invested into related infrastructure. 

The report said: “The growth in Ireland follows the easing of constraints on new data centre grid connections around Dublin and the introduction of a new Government plan to direct new data centre development towards regions with spare renewable and grid capacity.”

While Indeed found that data centre hiring has “surged”, it also made the argument that wider hiring in the technology sector is stagnating. 

“Data centre job postings are above their pre-pandemic level in all 10 European markets analysed while postings for other tech roles remain below their pre-pandemic levels. The recent increase has been most notable in Spain, Italy and Ireland.”

Perhaps indicating the specialist nature of roles in this field, Indeed’s research indicated that data centre jobs often offer higher compensation, with the report noting that European employers advertise higher pay for data centre roles than for the same occupations elsewhere.

“Of the 29 country-occupation pairs analysed, 28 showed a pay premium for data centre work. The largest premiums are generally seen among workers directly tied to data centre sites, including installation and maintenance roles.”

Posted wages for data centre roles in management and project management fields were also found to be high, with the largest figures observed in Italy and the UK. Software development roles tied to data centres offered the smallest pay ranging from around 1pc more than non-data centre-related roles in Germany to roughly 23pc in Italy.  

The report said: “Given that salary transparency in job ads remains low in many European countries and posted wage data are sparse in some places, these figures are best read for direction rather than magnitude. And the direction is clear, demand for data centre workers is driving up wages.”

Indeed found that Europe’s data centre endeavours, while smaller and at an earlier stage than US counterparts, is visible in the wider labour market, particularly in the metrics used to track it, such as job postings, pay and jobseeker engagement. 

“It is also one of the very few sources of growing tech-adjacent hiring on a continent where tech postings remain deeply depressed and where the broader labour market continues to soften,” said the report.

Ultimately, Indeed’s research states that it remains to be seen whether strong investment in data centres over the course of the next few years can create a jobs boom that is both durable and can meaningfully lift the economy, rather than offering “a temporary and limited reprieve for a continent struggling to find new dynamism”. 

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