Data centre end user take-up has more than doubled since 2013, says new research
Thu 7 Aug 2014
End user take-up in UK data centres has more than doubled in the first half of 2014 compared to the same period last year, according to recent research by GVA Connect, specialist data centre property advisers.
“With continued acquisition by data centre operators through 2013 and a sharp increase of end user take up in Q1/2014, our research shows […] take up of both co-location and wholesale data centre space by end users which is rewarding those commitments by operators to expand existing sites as well as developing new sites,” said Charles Carden, director at GVA Connect.
Compared to 2013, total take-up by operators and end users, such as corporate occupiers, government agencies and IT integrators, has increased by 14% in the first half of this year. Carden also revealed that end user “transaction volumes […] increased significantly,” more than doubling from a total of 13MW in H1/2013 to 30MW in H1/2014.
The research from the property advisers also showed London and the South East as leaders in the field, with nearly 70% of the UK’s total take-up in the first half of 2014 being located within a short distance from the City of London.
GVA Connect predicts West Thurrock will be the next major outer-London data centre hotspot, thanks to its offering of high quality, high power and fully approved sites offering shell and core options, as well as fully fitted centres.
Gateway Data Centre was cited by GVA Connect as one these advanced facilities. Offering 86,000 square feet of designed data hall space and up to 50MVA of diverse power, they suggested that the campus is ideally suited for those requiring medium to high density use. The site, based in the West Thurrock area, is also well connected, at only 2.0ms round trip latency to Central London.
The research also identified a trend for IT outsourcing which is set to grow as the volume of end user demand, and a reduced timeframe for delivery, spark further development of new sites over the final half of 2014.
According to Simon Campbell-Whyte, executive director at the Data Centre Alliance, the “GVA’s report shows welcome evidence of growing economic confidence and also the UK’s standing as a world class player in the digital services sector.”
“It is also good to see that organisations are realising the strong technical and economic arguments to move to efficient data centres that can meet their needs for service availability, operational professionalism, energy efficiency and security,” said Campbell-Whyte.
“This indicates that more businesses are following the correct advice by keeping a close eye on key data centre cost parameters like energy consumption, although ICT energy managers still have much more to do in this area, whilst data centres need to ensure they provide more trusted information to help clients make robust business cases to implement change,” he added.
