EXPERT OPINION
Re-thinking
data centre location decisions
Research has found the
UK to be the highest
priced country in
Europe for data centre
facilities. Simon Bearne,
Commercial Director at
UK data centre operator
NGD, delves beyond the
headlines of a pricing
report and outlines
why organisations
should consider looking
outside of London to
get better value.
40
Issue 03
atacentrepricing.com’s most
recent pricing trends surveys,
undertaken at the end of 2018,
continued to find the UK to
be the highest priced overall in Europe.
I say ‘continued’ as their previous mid-
year report had placed the UK out of 15
European countries, along with Ireland and
Switzerland, at the top end of the pricing
scale – with the highest average pricing
and monthly rack space rates of €1,000
or more.
D
Fair enough. But here’s the thing. Taking
an ‘averaging out’ approach with statistics
can be misleading. A somewhat broad-
brush country to country average price
comparison overlooks the huge variations
in pricing that exists in a major market such
as the UK. After all, the London and inner
M25 area is the traditional heartland for UK
data centres but also the most expensive,
so a national averaging across the board
will skew the reality quite considerably.
It was therefore pleasing to see their
UK specific survey highlighting a more
regionalised picture of the market. On
the one hand London and Slough, it says,
are the most expensive; perhaps not so
surprising bearing in mind the high cost
of real estate. At the same time, it was
very interesting to note the accelerating
growth of a few non-London UK regions
such as Manchester and Cardiff. The
latter being highlighted both as the lowest
priced and one of the fastest growing UK
data centre clusters. There is data centre
life outside of London Docklands and the
M25 after all.
www.intelligentdatacentres.com