Amazon AWS PDX-154 (Boardman Airport Campus)

Amazon AWS PDX-154 (Boardman Airport Campus) is Amazon (AWS)'s data center in Boardman, OR. It is being built right now, and it will be a size the company has not shared. It is set to open around 2027.

Electricians do the most work on a data center, followed by the crews that handle cooling and the crews that put up the steel frame. After that come plumbers, welders, carpenters, and the cable techs who wire the computers together.

Skilled-trade jobs on data centers are some of the best-paying work you can get without a four-year degree. With overtime, experienced electricians and pipefitters often make over $100,000 a year, and the work comes with health care and a pension through the union.

Boardman is part of a bigger building boom in Oregon, and workers drive in from all over the area. It is the same across the country: builders cannot find enough skilled workers. The U.S. needs about 140,000 more trade workers by 2030 to build all the data centers, and most builders say hiring is their hardest problem. Microsoft's president has called the shortage of electricians the biggest thing slowing data centers down.

Jobs like this one are why the local trade halls are busy. The work goes through local unions and contractors, and you start through a Oregon apprenticeship. The trade pages for Oregon show you how. Sources: a national survey of data-center building plans, plus U.S. jobs and pay data.