BCS Consultancy

The UK data centre construction sector faces structural and delivery challenges, in addition to the widely reported resource shortages across the sector. The news is clear and consistent – we need more construction workers to deliver the nation's building ambitions. For homes only, to deliver the Government's 1.5m by 2029 target, at least 60,000 new tradespeople are required to join the industry, this is the number that the government has announced plans to train.

For years, the UK data centre market has been defined by growth. Demand has risen consistently, driven by cloud, AI and the continued digitisation of the economy. London has remained one of Europe’s Tier 1 data centre hubs, with a deep ecosystem of connectivity, capital and customers. The UK market isn’t short of ambition. What’s becoming harder is turning that ambition into infrastructure that actually gets delivered. Across Europe, data centre demand remains strong and the UK is no exception.

Project teams are being inundated with e-mails from executing construction companies for ongoing projects and they aren´t bringing good news: price increases of up to 20 percent for certain materials and there could be a significant reduction in available delivery volumes. Available supply quantities are being reduced and in some cases to one-quarter of the originally ordered (and required!) amount.