As the industry calls for government help to get more construction workers into the country, experienced tradies able to put in the time on big projects can take home huge pay packets.
The mines have long drawn tradies away from the typical construction sector, but as data centre buildouts ramp up, there is growing demand for specific skilled labour. Some tradies such as electricians are reporting to make $300,000 a year, particularly on tunnelling and data centre projects Tim Cullen, the CEO of TradieSpec says.
“I’ve had discussions with people in the industry and it’s been corroborated that, yeah, that’s the case – base salary, overtime and penalty rates, some of them are taking home $250,000 to $300,000 a year, and in some cases all the way up to $400,000 or $450,000 a year.”
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In a video on social media on Wednesday he noted that it’s difficult work – often underground, dirty and sometimes dangerous – but said the current environment offers huge potential reward for young tradies willing to do it.
“For young guys looking to find an opportunity and money is a driving factor for them, it’s a good way to earn coin.
“It think it’s evidence of a blue collar gold rush that’s happening in real time. The country is going through a construction super cycle.
“There’s a huge opportunity for young guys and girls umming and ahhing about what field to go into,” he said.
Australia ‘needs’ more than 400,000 more tradies
Denita Wawn, the CEO of Master Builders Australia, said in a radio interview this week the country was crying out for more migrant tradies as demand for residential property, government construction projects and data centres continues to grow.
“We need 115,000 extra tradies alone just to meet the residential requirements of the Housing Accord,” he said.
“But on top of that, we need an additional 300,000 odd tradies across the three sectors of the industry to meet the commercial and civil construction requirements as well.
“We can’t forget that we’re building 17 additional properties [new and upgraded venues] in Queensland alone for the Olympics. So that is putting added pressure into the system.”
Meanwhile unions are warning the housing sector is at risk of haemorrhaging electricians to data centre developers if better pay and training conditions are not provided.
Appearing before a productivity inquiry, Electrical Trades Union Secretary Michael Wright said about 10 per cent of sparkies in the industry were now working in the construction of data centres, up from zero only just a few years ago.
Electrical Trades Union Secretary Michael Wright says Data Centres are pulling demand away from housing builds. · LinkedIn
Electrical apprenticeships have flatlined since the pandemic, meaning large employers who pay more – including US tech giants behind the data centres – are able to poach talent from smaller corners of the industry.
“Where that’s really going to bite is the housing sector, because housing is the lowest paid,” Mr Wright said. “This is a really big concern for us.”
The only option to plugging the shortage was training more Australians, he claimed, as other countries were experiencing similar shortages but offered better conditions to retain their workforce.
In the US – ground zero for the data centre boom – Dirty Jobs creator and host Mike Rowe spoke to Yahoo about how young trades people he had met at a Texas data centre were cashing in.
“All under 30 years old, all making US$240,000 to US$280,000 a year, all with as much overtime as they want, none with any debt, all three of whom were poached three times in the prior 18 months,” he said.
Do you have a story? Nick.whigham@yahooinc.com
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According to Commonwealth Bank analysis, Australia has around six gigawatts of potential data centre capacity in the pipeline, which is roughly four times the operational capacity recorded at the end of 2025.
“What really stands out in this pipeline is the size of the individual projects being proposed,” CBA economist Lucinda Jerogin said on the latest episode of the bank’s Economics & Markets podcast this week.
Around half of the proposed capacity is in NSW and about a quarter in Victoria, but interest is growing in South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and the NT.
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Cranes building the new AI infrastructure in Melbourne. · Yahoo Finance/Jason Murphy
“Our central estimate is for a total nominal build of around $150 billion by 2030,” Jerogin said.
“The difficulty will be ensuring enough trades workers, enough construction materials, and enough land and electricity to support the development of all these projects.
“We’re starting to see more projects proposed … in the Northern Territory, also places like South Australia, where some of those electricity and grid constraints are less severe,” she said.
with AAP
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