The infrastructure behind the UK’s digital economy faces growing challenges. From rising demand for computing capacity to energy pressures and skills shortages, keeping up with the pace of change is a complex task.
To achieve the UK’s long-term digital ambitions, it is critical that the decisions made today lay the foundations for a resilient data centre sector for the future.
#1 Preparation: Barriers to Building
If the UK is going to succeed in becoming a data centre powerhouse, then concerns from experts in the industry must be addressed. Some of the barriers we need to overcome start before the data centres even exist, as Puneet Saxena, Corporate Vice President of Manufacturing Industry Strategy at Blue Yonder, explained.
“Building a new data centre requires everything from electrical and cooling equipment to networking technology and computing hardware,” he said. “As countries pursue AI infrastructure programmes simultaneously, competition for these inputs could push up costs, lengthen delivery schedules, and slow the addition of new computing capacity.
For Saxena, as demand intensifies, developers need a clearer picture of equipment availability across their projects and procurement pipelines.
“AI can help developers anticipate shifts in supply and demand and make earlier procurement decisions,” he added.
The form that infrastructure takes is also changing, however. Mark Christie, Field CTO at StorMagic, highlighted how “data centres are often imagined as vast, distant facilities” but the infrastructure supporting the UK’s digital economy is actually becoming “more compact and distributed”.
“Advances in chip design, NVMe storage, and hyperconverged infrastructure mean that capabilities once associated with a traditional server room can now be delivered in a much smaller footprint,” said Christie.
The change towards more compact, flexible infrastructure “gives organisations greater control over where their workloads are processed and how resources are used”.
For Skip Levens, Quantum’s Product Marketer and AI Strategist at the LTO Program, another factor impacting data centre planning is the type of storage required to store the enormous volumes of data that AI creates and depends on, without placing unnecessary pressure on power, budgets, and physical infrastructure.
“Not every dataset needs to sit on always-on, high-performance storage throughout its lifecycle,” said Levens. “A more sustainable approach is to match data to the appropriate storage tier based on how frequently and quickly it needs to be accessed”.
Levens added that for large volumes of data that must be retained but are accessed less frequently, Linear Tape-Open (LTO) tape is a highly energy-efficient and cost-effective capacity tier, which allows that data to be brought back into higher-performance environments when required.
“Building more intelligent, tiered architectures will be critical to ensuring that growing data volumes do not translate directly into equally rapid growth in energy consumption and infrastructure costs,” said Levens.
#2 Power: Keeping the Lights on
The work does not end once data centres are designed and built, however. Securing sufficient power for new capacity is becoming one of the sector’s most significant challenges.
“AI and digital services are fundamentally energy hungry,” argued Mark Skelton, Chief Technology Officer at Node4. “With organisations racing to ensure they have the infrastructure in place to address the market opportunity.
Skelton noted that in the UK, data centres already consume around 2% of national power; he stressed that unchecked growth could push that to 10–15%, at a time when the grid is already strained.
“As AI-driven growth accelerates, ESG and sustainability appear to be slipping down the agenda,” he continued. However, Skelton emphasised that AI and sustainability “should evolve together”.
“The rapid expansion of compute capacity, data centres, and digital infrastructure brings real environmental implications,” he said. “Without clear guardrails and coordinated oversight, we risk solving one productivity challenge while creating a long-term energy problem.”
Terry Storrar, Managing Director at Leaseweb UK, agreed that sustainability is a critical factor in making infrastructure choices today. Storrar pointed to investment ranging from new cooling technologies, including direct-to-chip systems and fully liquid-cooled racks, to advanced analytics and AI-driven monitoring tools. Together, he said, these demonstrate that there is “no shortage of innovation focused on optimising energy consumption and improving operational efficiency”.
“The industry still has a long way to go to effectively balance power demand with environmental responsibilities, but progress is being made,” said Storrar. “Through renewable energy partnerships, efficiency standards, and transparent reporting, operators are prioritising long-term investment that helps give organisations greater choice over where and how their infrastructure is delivered while maintaining accountability for its environmental impact.”
#3 People: The Heart of the Industry
It is not just the technology and systems that are vital to data centre success – none of this infrastructure can be built, maintained, or advanced without human input.
“Data centres might be out of sight for most people, but they underpin far more of our everyday lives than we realise,” stated Bron Gondwana, CEO at Fastmail.
For Gondwana, “the people keeping this infrastructure running matter enormously”.
“When something goes wrong, skilled operators can make the difference between a tiny blip most of us never notice and a multiple-hour outage which ruins your entire day,” he added.
Gondwana said that “ensuring organisations continue to develop and retain hands-on technical expertise” is vital.
“You can build more data centres, add more computing power and invest in new technology, but resilient digital infrastructure ultimately depends on having people who understand how it works when something goes wrong,” he stressed.
Mike Slevin, Director of EMEA Market at Fluke Corporation, shared how “skills shortages are already threatening progress” towards the UK’s data centre development.
“The explosive growth of AI has made data centres the second most in-demand construction sector in the UK, yet it is struggling to access the people needed to deliver this critical infrastructure,” said Slevin.
He continued that the Global Construction Market Intelligence 2026 report found data centres are now the most constrained construction sector globally when it comes to contractor capacity, with over 70% of respondents reporting tightening or overstretched capacity.
“In the UK, the skills deficit is particularly severe across specialist electrical, mechanical, and plumbing trades, with every UK industry respondent citing shortages of qualified workers in these areas,” said Slevin.
Slevin insisted that “to make real change, organisations throughout the data centre industry must do more to show young people that it offers rewarding, long-term careers” while “apprenticeships and structured development can build the expertise needed for the future.”
#4 Perception: Becoming Better Neighbours
With recent research finding that nearly three in five (59%) of British citizens are still unsure what a data centre is or does, improving wider perception is the final piece of the puzzle.
Gary Wong, Global Segment Leader of Power, Utilities, and Infrastructure at AVEVA, considered how data centre operators need to look at the bigger picture and ensure that new builds are “planned to deliver the greatest possible positive impact on their areas where they are based. They must be designed as good neighbours from the start.”
“A gigawatt project has to show how it fits into the local power and climate picture. If the surrounding network already runs close to the edge of its limits and the local environment is rainfall-deficient, those factors need to be addressed up front,” he said. “Alongside, local authorities need to rethink the value chain, from production to distribution and response.”
As demand for the UK’s digital infrastructure continues to grow, expanding data centre capacity will require more than simply constructing new facilities. The industry must plan carefully for the equipment, energy, and expertise each development needs, while showing local communities how projects will manage their environmental impact and deliver wider benefits. In doing so, the UK can build a data centre sector that is resilient, sustainable, and equipped to support its digital ambitions.
Leave a comment