The expansion is driven by growth in Slough DC cluster

DataCentrePricing.Com (DCP), specialists in Data Centre trends and pricing, latest edition of the Data Centre Trends Tracker finds that the UK is the largest third party Data Centre market in Europe with 840,000 of Data Centre space, followed by Germany with 509,000 m2.

Some of the highlights found include:

The UK is seeing rapid Data Centre growth – driven by the Slough Data Centre cluster - The UK is forecast to see growth of up to 40,000 m2 of new Data Centre raised floor space per annum, with 21,000 m2 of space alone forecast to come from the expansion of the Slough Data Centre cluster over the next 12 month period. It is to be followed by expansion in the London, Farnborough and Cardiff clusters.

"The UK Data Centre market is becoming more geographically diverse over time " – The UK is composed of a number of Data Centre city clusters, with London & the Inner M25 area being the largest accounting for 260,000 m2 of space, followed by Slough (Berkshire) with 107,000 m2 of space. Other large UK Data Centre clusters include Cardiff, Manchester, Woking and Farnborough – with new Data Centre space also now being built around Edinburgh, Leeds and Newcastle.

Overall average Data Centre pricing in the UK remains high – Average UK rack space rates are over Euro €1,000 per standard retail rack - and the UK is currently the third highest overall average rate in Europe (behind Switzerland & Ireland). But, within the UK, there is a wide range of pricing which differs significantly by each Data Centre city cluster – with the Leeds and Newcastle clusters having the lowest average rentals – and the average is around 42 per cent less than the highest priced UK Data Centre cluster (which is the London & the Inner M25 region cluster).

New Data Centre facilities are emerging in regional centres of the UK - In common with other Country Markets the UK is seeing the construction of Data Centres closer to the Edge, to support regional population centres and bring content nearer to the end user.

Data Centre facilities are being built in Wales, Scotland, the North West & the North East of England, with a range of new regional city Data Centre clusters being formed. And new Data Centre facilities have been opened near Portsmouth and Gloucester during the past six month period.

DCP analysis highlights the key common trends taking place in the UK and the emergence of city Data Centre clusters. DCP has identified there are five clusters in the UK, including London, Slough, Cardiff, Manchester and Woking.

Increasingly, Data Centre Providers are competing to provide cloud connectivity to the key Cloud Service Providers via a cloud exchange aiming to attract the enterprise customer to the facility - which is driving the Data Centre clusters’ status as a connectivity hub. And the amount of connectivity available from a Data Centre facility helps determine whether a price premium can be charged – the more connectivity available the higher the price premium.