Market data
Columbus has 5 data centers under construction and 3 commissioning agents
Of the nine metros we track, Columbus has the most data center projects under construction and one of the smallest groups of people titled commissioning agent.
Founder & Principal Recruiter · Published November 7, 2026
Columbus has 5 data centers under construction and 3 commissioning agents
Of the nine metros we track, Columbus has the most data center projects under construction, five. On November 4, 2026, three people in the Columbus area held the current title commissioning agent on LinkedIn. A contractor or owner staffing commissioning there will hire most of the team from outside the title, outside the metro, or both.
Figures
| Figure | Columbus, as of November 4, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Data center projects we track | 15 (5 under construction, 3 approved) |
| Commissioning agent, engineer or technician titles | 81 |
| Of those, commissioning agents | 3 |
| Controls, BMS or building automation technician titles | 90 |
| IBEW Local 683 electrician base rate | $43.00 an hour plus $26.37 fringes |
Each figure comes from a page we update monthly. For comparison, Dallas-Fort Worth has 34 people titled commissioning agent and Northern Virginia has 32.
Hiring
Start with the 78 Columbus commissioning engineers and technicians. They run the same functional testing an agent oversees, and some of them will have led tests on past projects.
Controls and BMS technicians are the second pool. Integrated systems testing on a data center leans on the building automation system, and Columbus has 90 people with those titles.
For a lead agent who has signed off on Level 4 and 5 testing, expect to recruit from another metro. Budget for travel or relocation in the offer from the start.
Method
Title counts are LinkedIn Sales Navigator searches by current job title in the Columbus, Ohio Metropolitan Area, read November 4, 2026. They count titles, so people doing commissioning work under another title are missed. Project counts come from public filings and news reports listed on the Columbus tracker. The electrician rate is from Davis-Bacon wage determination OH20260078 for Franklin County.
By market
Markets
Candidate supply and pay differ by metro. These pages cover the markets where this comes up most.
Questions
Questions
- How many commissioning agents are there in Columbus, Ohio?
- Three people in the Columbus, Ohio Metropolitan Area held the current title commissioning agent on LinkedIn on November 4, 2026. Another 78 held the title commissioning engineer or commissioning technician.
- How many data centers are under construction in Columbus?
- We track 15 data center projects in the Columbus area as of November 4, 2026. Five are under construction and three are approved but not yet building.
Czarina Tabayoyong
Founder and principal recruiter, Critical Path Hiring. Czarina recruits commissioning, MEP, power and critical facilities people for data center builds. She previously recruited cloud and data center architecture talent at AWS Professional Services, and PMO and project delivery talent for hyperscale data center campuses in Texas and Virginia.
Hiring call
Book a hiring call and we'll talk through which roles your build needs and when to bring them on.