News

UK Data Centre pricing remains one of the highest in Europe

A new report published by Tariff Consultancy Ltd Data Centre Pricing UK – 2012 shows that the UK Data Centre market is the largest in Europe with almost 470,000 square metres of raised floor space – which is forecast to increase by 35% to 767,000 square metres of raised floor space by the end of 2017. At the same time average UK rack space pricing remains relatively high at above Euro 1,000 per month.

The main reason for the increase in Data Centre development is the growth in new campus-based Data Centres outside of the London area which will also act as a constraint on forecast future average rack space price increases.

Average Data Centre pricing will be maintained in part by the bundling of power with rack space for a single monthly rental fee – with selected Data Centre providers offering power bundles of up to 4 kW per rack.

TCL forecasts that average customer power per Data Centre facility will increase from 5.5 MW (as of the end of 2012) up to 7.4 MW (as of the end of 2012). In turn, average customer power per metre will increase from 1.08 kW to 1.12 kW over the same period.

But there remains a wide spread of pricing in the UK market with the development of regional Data Centre facilities with pricing per square metre that ranges from 197 Euro per month up to 507 Euro per month. Regional Data Centre facilities (outside London) are offering lower cost average pricing from a larger site.

The main growth in UK Data Centre facilities will come from the Carrier Neutral Data Centre and the Premium Data Centre segment. In the UK telecoms operators such as BT and C&W are typically renting Data Centre space from other 3rd party operators rather than building their own facilities.

The TCL Data Centre Pricing UK – 2012 report provides a unique survey of the UK Data Centre market consisting of 120 facilities from 46 Data Centre providers. Average pricing is provided by Data Centre segment (including the Carrier Based, Carrier Neutral & the Premium (which provide power of up to 20 kW per rack) Data Centre segments), with average pricing per kW, per standard rack and per square metre as of the end of 2012 as a 5 year forecast to the end of 2017.