At a glance
Eight of the ten metros in LinkedIn's first Australian Cities on the Rise ranking, published 22 July 2026, have an operating or proposed data centre inside the boundary.
Firmus is building three Tasmanian sites, all in the state's north; co-chief executive Oliver Curtis puts staffing at about half a full-time role per megawatt.
Greater Hobart ranked first, ahead of Greater Darwin, Rockhampton, Greater Newcastle and Greater Adelaide.
Australia's operational data centre workforce is about 9,600 full-time equivalents and reaches 17,900 by 2030 on Mandala Partners' forecast.
Mandala counts about 15 construction jobs for every permanent operational role, which puts the bulk of this build's employment in a phase none of the ten metros has entered.
Eight of Australia's ten fastest-growing cities have data centre capacity
Sydney and Melbourne hold most of Australia's operating and planned capacity, and a growing share of the pipeline is landing in second-tier metros whose labour markets get far less coverage. LinkedIn's first Australian Cities on the Rise ranking, published on 22 July 2026, covers exactly that set of cities and makes no reference to data centres or AI infrastructure. We have mapped the pipeline against it as an outside check on where the build is landing.
The ranking scores metro areas with fewer than 3 million LinkedIn members, which excludes Sydney and Melbourne by design, on year-on-year growth in hiring and job postings and on the year-on-year change in the ratio of members moving in against members moving out. The ranking data runs from March 2024 to February 2026.
Greater Hobart ranked first. Greater Darwin, Rockhampton, Greater Newcastle and Greater Adelaide followed, then Greater Albury-Wodonga, Greater Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Canberra and Wollongong.
Eight of the ten metros it names already carry data centre capacity. The list also predates the build: LinkedIn's window closed in February 2026, ahead of the energisation of nearly every project below.
Metro (rank) | Data centre activity | Status |
|---|---|---|
Greater Hobart (1) | Small legacy colocation at Dowsing Point, Cambridge and Derwent Park; Firmus' three projects are all in the state's north | Operating; no AI-scale campus in the metro |
Greater Darwin (2) | NEXTDC's D1 and D2; Beetaloo Digital's Weddell concept, 185ha, up to 2GW of on-site gas generation | D1 operating; D2 in development; Weddell a concept |
Rockhampton (3) | No proposal in Rockhampton, Gladstone or Central Queensland | None |
Greater Newcastle (4) | 540MW proposed at Loxford in Cessnock LGA, on the former Kurri Kurri smelter site; Leading Edge at Mayfield West | Scoping report lodged with NSW planning |
Greater Adelaide (5) | NEXTDC A1 in the CBD; IREN's 800MW Bundey campus sits about 125km north-east | A1 operating; Bundey proposed |
Albury-Wodonga (6) | Leading Edge regional edge facility at East Albury, opened September 2022 | Operating |
Greater Brisbane (7) | NEXTDC B1 and B2; Quinbrook's Supernode at Brendale, a 260MW battery stage within a 780MW build-out, plus a proposed 800MW campus | Battery stage one operating; campus proposed |
Gold Coast (8) | NEXTDC GC1 at Southport, 6MW | In planning |
Canberra (9) | CDC runs 117MW across Hume and Fyshwick | Operating; a further 39MW under construction at Beard |
Wollongong (10) | BlueScope's 200ha Port Kembla precinct rezoned December 2025; no data centre named in the primary documents | None proposed |
Source: company disclosures, NSW and South Australian planning records, and the directory of Australian data centres, July 2026.
Firmus' 600MW Gunvor supply, announced on 1 July 2026, attaches to campuses at Tailem Bend and Stirling North, both outside commuting distance of Adelaide. Bundey is in the Regional Council of Goyder, about 125km north-east of the city. The A$10 billion battery and data centre proposal near Muswellbrook sits in the Upper Hunter, roughly 120km from Newcastle, and its developer has still not been named. Each state's build is set out in where Australia's data centre build stands, state by state.
Universities and health services anchor the hiring in all ten cities
LinkedIn published the three largest hiring employers for each metro, drawn from a window running from 1 February 2024 to 1 February 2026. The University of Tasmania, the Department of Health, Tasmania and the Department for Education, Children and Young People lead Greater Hobart. The Northern Territory Government, Charles Darwin University and Royal Darwin Hospital lead Greater Darwin. The Australian National University, Defence Australia and the Australian Government lead Canberra. Three private employers appear anywhere in the thirty names: Aurizon at Rockhampton, BAE Systems Australia at Adelaide and BlueScope at Wollongong.
A university appears in all ten top-three lists and a health service in eight of them. These are the institutional labour markets the current build is entering, and they carry the training capacity data centre construction competes for. Australia's operational data centre workforce is about 9,600 full-time equivalents today, rising to 17,900 by 2030 on Mandala Partners' forecast, figures set out in the full employment data.
Firmus' three Tasmanian sites sit 200km north of Hobart
Firmus is developing three Tasmanian sites, none in Greater Hobart. St Leonards at Launceston carries the first stage, consented by the City of Launceston on 1 September 2025 and under construction, now targeted for late 2026 having slipped from the mid-2026 date given at approval. Bell Bay, on the former Gunns pulp mill land at Long Reach in George Town, is a 288MW proposal on Firmus' own figures; more than 120 residents packed a public meeting at Exeter, after which Firmus supported a 14-day extension to consultation, and a council decision is due in August 2026. Wesley Vale is flagged at about 26MW initially, growing to roughly 52MW. Tasmanian Infrastructure Minister Kerry Vincent has called the investment "staggering", with Pulse Tasmania putting the project at $2.7 billion; Firmus has not published a combined figure for the three sites, and St Leonards alone has been reported at A$2.1 billion.
Co-chief executive Oliver Curtis gave a per-megawatt staffing figure on ABC Radio in early July of roughly 0.5 full-time roles per megawatt, which he applied as 52 ongoing jobs at St Leonards, 144 at Bell Bay and 20 at Wesley Vale, or 216 across the three sites. Those are steady-state operating roles, which on the sector's own ratios account for a fraction of the employment a build this size carries. A July 2025 release from the incumbent Tasmanian Liberals had put Stage 1a at Launceston at up to 100 direct jobs, a figure the company has not reconciled with Curtis' per-megawatt method. Curtis put the grid position this way in the same interview: "There are existing users of energy in Tasmania. They have priority over us. We're basically last on and first off."
The state's population data runs the other way to its hiring momentum. The Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded net interstate migration of negative 452 for the twelve months to 31 December 2025 and annual population growth of 0.5 per cent against a national 1.5 per cent. On connectivity, Bernacchi-1, the Firmus and SUBCO subsea cable announced on 2 June 2026, will add more than 60Tbps as a branch off SUBCO's SMAP trunk, is targeted for service in the second quarter of 2027, and remains subject to marine and landing permits.
Mandala counts 15 construction jobs for every operational role
Mandala Partners' report for AirTrunk, AWS, CDC, Microsoft and NEXTDC, now published through Data Centres Australia, puts the construction phase at about 15 jobs for every operational job. Applied to the 8,300 net operational roles Mandala expects Australia to add by 2030, that implies on the order of 124,500 construction job-years on our calculation. Published estimates of the economy-wide multiplier per direct role range from about 2.3 times in a Vista Site Selection study using IMPLAN to 7.5 times in PwC modelling for the Data Center Coalition.
The construction phase is where 8,300 net operational roles turn into roughly 124,500 job-years, and none of the ten metros has entered it. Kurri Kurri's proponent has put its Loxford proposal at 500 construction jobs and 250 ongoing. IREN puts Bundey at more than 500 construction roles and more than 200 ongoing, with first energisation from 2028. Beetaloo Energy's Weddell concept, announced on 22 July, sits on a one-year land exclusivity with no named tenant.
Infrastructure Australia's 2025 Market Capacity Report projects a national infrastructure workforce shortfall reaching 300,000 by mid-2027, and about 2,700 data centre and AI infrastructure roles were open across Australia as at April 2026, tracked in the 2026 hiring state of play and on the data centre jobs board. Training capacity is concentrated where the existing fleet is: the Microsoft Datacentre Academy runs at TAFE NSW Meadowbank and Victoria University in Footscray, AirTrunk's four-year apprenticeship took 30 mechanical and electrical apprentices in its first cohort, and Victoria's State Electricity Commission academy will offer 2,000 electrical trade apprenticeships over four years, with its first full intake beginning in January 2027. The ten cities LinkedIn ranked are the next places that capacity has to reach.
What to watch
George Town's Bell Bay decision. A council determination on Firmus' 288MW proposal is due in August 2026 and is the next test of Tasmanian social licence for the build.
Firmus' Tasmanian energisation. St Leonards is targeted for late 2026, six months later than the date given at approval. Live megawatts would be the first Tasmanian data centre load large enough to register in a state labour market of 281,000 employed people.
Kurri Kurri's undisclosed developer. The 540MW Loxford proposal has lodged a scoping report through a planning consultant, and the developer and end user have not been named.
The next LinkedIn edition. The 2026 window closed in February. The 2027 ranking is the first that could capture construction hiring at Launceston, Bundey and any Hunter approval.
Infrastructure Australia's 2027 peak. The projected 300,000 shortfall lands the same year the State Electricity Commission takes its first apprentice intake and a year before Bundey targets energisation.