DataBank HOU2

Houston is the energy capital of the United States, with the metro economy organized around the integrated oil majors, refining and petrochemicals along the Ship Channel, the Texas Medical Center (the largest medical complex in the world), NASA Johnson Space Center, and Gulf shipping. Data centers serve enterprise energy tenants — Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, and the major service companies all run substantial computing footprints, much of it on premises or in nearby colos. The 17 tracked facilities and roughly 3,000 NAICS 518 jobs (estimated) place Houston as a tier-two market without hyperscaler campuses.

The standout trades number is the maintenance and repair pool: 32,050 workers, the deepest concentration in this dataset. This is the petrochemical maintenance workforce — refinery mechanics, instrumentation techs, equipment maintainers — and a meaningful share of those skills transfer directly to data center facility operations. Median maintenance pay is $46,710, modest in absolute terms but matched against Texas cost of living. Electricians earn $59,180 and HVAC techs $58,940, both below national averages because of the non-union labor environment.

For a trades worker, Houston is a particularly strong fit for maintenance workers transitioning out of refinery work into data center facility ops. The skills cross over more cleanly than in any other metro. Lower wages than Dallas or Phoenix, but a deeper specialty maintenance pipeline.