UK Datacenter Market

The UK is now one of the largest data centre markets in the world, housing up to 7.6 million square metres of data centre space, according to the DatacenterDynamics Industry Census 2011. DatacenterDynamics estimated that the UK has:Maximum power consumption of 6.44 GW - about enough to power six million homes and 2.4-3.1% of total energy consumption in the UK, A ‘population’ of just under two million racks, total amount of white space (empty space that can accommodate future racks or cabinets) equivalent to the area of 900 full sized football pitches. Based on this research, the organization predicts that UK data centre investment will grow by £2.15 billion over the next year, enabling the construction of new data centers and upgrades to existing facilities. The report states that the UK's expenditure of $3.35bn (£2.1bn) was second only to that of the US at $3.5bn (£2.18bn) and marginally ahead of China, which spent $3.1bn.

According to CBRE research, historically, London has proven to be the backbone of the European Tier 1 market, seeing consistently strong levels of market activity. However, demand in 2011 has so far not matched the levels seen in previous years with total take-up for the first half of this year at the lowest level recorded at the mid year point. The availability of space in London has continued to fall. The current market vacancy rate is now 16.36%, with the vacancy rate of fully fitted space just over 6%. At this level London has now clearly reached a point at which new supply is required to satisfy present and future demand.

The UK data centre industry has slowed down over the past year. The recession brought a rise in outsourcing as businesses looked to streamline operations and cut capital costs. Content delivery networks (CDNs) also had a substantial impact on the UK data centre industry last year as the use of video has become more widespread in data centre designs. The UK data center market will lead in capacity over the next five years, with space more than double France or Germany by 2014. The UK has the greatest breadth of offerings with more than 150 data center providers. Increasing data center demand and investment across western European markets, and the factors that restrict this growth form the background to a new report from BroadGroup – the third bi-annual European Data Centre Market.

The UK is positioned third in the overall Data Centre Development Index (DCDi), which ranks markets according to their state of development, behind the East and West Coast US. The DCDi was developed by DatacenterDynamics Research, and takes into account the size of the economy, the number of data centres and the influence of its sector, power consumption, human resources, and technology considerations. According to the DatacenterDynamics Industry Census 2011, the census brings the UK data centre industry and its power consumption and emissions into focus. It gives the impression of a large, mature industry with plenty of experience. Growth is slowing, so some focus is turning to better monitoring and managing of energy use, which must be a good thing for Green IT.

The market for data centre construction is estimated to be valued at around £1.26bn in 2011, significantly below values seen at its recent peak in 2007. The prospects for the data centre construction market in the medium term are relatively bright and it is expected that in 2012, the market will show strong growth. While some client sectors have been facing difficult times during the recession, demand in some key client sectors, such as online content and media providers and SaaS providers have seen strong growth and this is likely to continue in the near future. It is estimated that the market may reach £1.66bn by the end of 2015, representing a slight decline on 2014 following a period of sustained growth between 2010 and 2014.   Source: AMA Research.

Major Datacenter players in UK

TelecityGroup specialises in the design, build and management of highly connected, resilient and secure environments in which customers can house their telecoms, internet and IT infrastructure. Headquartered in London, we operate 27 data centres in prime city centre positions in Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt, London, Manchester, Milan, Paris and Stockholm. We have an extensive and highly-targeted programme of capacity expansion and since 2008 we have opened new facilities in London, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Milan and most recently Paris.
Website: http://www.telecitygroup.com/

Formed in 1996, Netcetera is the largest web host on the Isle of Man and one of Europe's leading managed hosting and data centre providers. Netcetera provides co-location, dedicated servers and managed infrastructure services to businesses in over 60 countries worldwide. A 16,000 square foot ISO27001 certified facility located in the Isle of Man, enables Netcetera to offer any business enterprise level co-location and hosted solutions. From single server co-location and Disaster Recovery to fully customised dedicated servers, Netcetera can provide companies with the IT systems they need.
Website: http://www.netcetera.co.uk/

Telehouse offers global data centre facilities and connectivity, providing a secure and resilient platform for mission-critical IT systems. Established in 1988, Telehouse became Europe's first purpose-built neutral colocation provider. Today, the company is at the heart of the Internet and telecommunications infrastructure, serving over 1,000 major corporations worldwide, from small start-ups to multinationals across a wide range of industries. Telehouse is the data centre subsidiary of Japanese corporation KDDI, one of the world's largest network providers and a Global 300 company.
Website: http://www.telehouse.net/

Global Switch currently operates seven campuses with nine data centres across Asia-Pacific and Europe which total over 3,000,000 sq ft (290,000 sq m) of space and are occupied by internationally-renowned corporate tenants drawn primarily from the IT services, financial services, telecoms and data services sectors. In response to strong growth in demand over the last few years, Global Switch's ninth data centre will be launched in Paris later this month creating that city's leading data centre campus of 540,000 sq ft (50,000 sq m). Global Switch is a Reuben Brothers company.

Website: http://www.globalswitch.com/en

Established in 1995, NetBenefit is one of the UK’s most experienced managed hosting companies. We specialise in providing tailored managed hosting solutions that deliver security, resilience and online performance for business critical websites, applications and online advertising campaigns. NetBenefit is a part of Group NBT. Group NBT is AIM listed and has successfully established its brands as leading providers of domain name and internet related services across Europe and into the United States.

Website: http://www.netbenefit.com/

C4L is an internet infrastructure solutions provider and deploys a full range of services in over 40 data centres, including colocation, IP transit, interconnects, data backup, data storage, virtualisation, telecoms, disaster recovery and leased lines, to name just a few. C4L's industry leading data centre connected network, includes sites such as Bournemouth, Slough, BlueSquare Maidenhead, BlueSquare Milton Keynes, Telehouse Metro, Telehouse North, City Lifeline and InterXion. its client base includes Government, FTSE 250, financial institutions and many of the UK's network carriers.

Website: http://www.c4l.co.uk/

Adapt was founded in 2001 as an independent provider of IT and network services. Originally branded Mnet, the organisation began as the IT services division of a larger business, grew dramatically, rebranded as Adapt in early 2007 and in the same year acquired network services provider Centric Telecom. This acquisition doubled revenues and generated considerable operating efficiencies. In 2008 as part of its transition to full managed services provision, Adapt also acquired Centre Core, the Managed Services division of News International, giving the business a step change in its technical and operational capability.
Website: http://www.adaptplc.com/

Datapipe offers a single provider solution for managing and securing mission-critical IT services, including cloud computing, infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, colocation and data centers. Datapipe delivers those services from the world’s most influential technical and financial markets including New York metro, Silicon Valley, London, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Website: http://www.datapipe.com/