Following his attendance at the Datacloud Global Congress in Cannes, Eddie Tribe, Managing Director at SES Technology, reflects on the ongoing question – how are we going to grasp the momentum in the UK data centre sector?
If you have attended any built environment conference this year, there has been one theme that has been impossible to ignore, regardless of whether you work in digital infrastructure or not – delivering data centres at pace has the ability to transform the UK’s economy.
At the recent Datacloud Global Congress in Cannes, across conversations, panels and informal discussions, it was clear they will be a central part of the UK’s growth story and a key capacity consideration for the construction industry – no longer a distant ‘what if?’, but a much more urgent ‘needed now’.
While it may seem obvious today, this marks a notable shift in perception. Just a few years ago, data centres were often ignored, hidden away behind indistinct buildings on non-descript industrial sites – unloved and never spoken about. Today, they are widely recognised as critical national infrastructure, fundamental to economic growth and the future delivery of public services.
Much of that attention is being driven, of course, by AI. Demand for data processing and storage is accelerating quickly combined with a significant level of investment. With this demand, comes a level of pressure that the sector hasn’t experienced before. It’s not just about building more capacity, it’s about whether we can deliver it at the speed and scale required.
Power and planning are naturally some of the most defining constraints. There are well over 100 data centre schemes in various stages of planning and pre-development across the UK, but only a small proportion of these are likely to secure the grid connections needed to move forward in the immediate future. That imbalance between ambition and deliverability is already shaping the market. It also highlights the need to think differently about how projects are prioritised and co-ordinated.
At the same time, the conversation is starting to move on from outdated assumptions of water consumption and resource-intensive sheds from even just ten years ago. Modern data centres are far more efficient than they’re often given credit for, and there’s a growing awareness of the role they can play in supporting jobs, skills and regional economies. But as an industry, we still need to get much better at telling that story. If we don’t, then communities will rightly push back on developments and projects will become stymied in planning.
Beyond power, what is becoming increasingly clear – and echoed in SES Technology’s recent industry roundtable report – is that delivery constraints also run deep into the engineering side of these projects. MEP systems are not just a component of delivery; they are the backbone of these projects.
From high-voltage distribution and cooling infrastructure to resilience and redundancy requirements, data centres’ scale and complexity are now stretching both supply chains and specialist capability. Shortages of critical components, extended lead times, constrained MEP fit-out capability and limited commissioning expertise are all creating real delivery risk. Designers are also citing experienced resource limitations as an issue, which just adds further pressure.
In practice, the industry is not just competing for power and land, but for the engineering capacity needed to turn ambition into operational, resilient facilities.
However, what felt consistent throughout the Datacloud Global Congress was the importance of partnership. Delivering data centres is highly technical, and success depends on early collaboration between developers, designers, contractors, suppliers, energy providers and local authorities. The projects that move forward are the ones where those pieces come together early and stay aligned.
The key takeaway is that the sector is entering a more demanding phase. The opportunity is significant, but so is the complexity. Progress will depend on how well we join the dots across infrastructure, policy and delivery.