Name: UK Data Centres Market Study 2026–2031 — Demand, Supply & the Power Constraint
Brand: eFinancialModels
SKU: 654066
Availability: InStock

Market Study United Kingdom Data Centres | eFinancialModels

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The United Kingdom is Western Europe’s largest data-centre market — and its most sharply power-constrained. Demand is not the question. The Slough–West London corridor is the world’s second-largest data-centre cluster after Ashburn, Virginia, and it has hit a grid ceiling severe enough that the Greater London Authority has warned new housing in three West London boroughs could wait until 2035. This study explains what that means for anyone building, buying, financing, or modelling UK data-centre capacity through 2031.

What you get

A 38-page, chart-rich research report (Word and PDF) plus a companion source-verification workbook.

Twelve EFM-branded charts
Twelve data tables
Three quantified scenarios
More than 25 cited sources — every figure attributed, every forward-looking number labelled

Key findings

Capacity is concentrated. Great Britain holds roughly 1.6 GW of colocation IT capacity (about 1.05 GW in London), and the Slough–West London corridor alone is around 800 MW — second only to Ashburn globally.
Power demand is set to quadruple. UK data-centre electricity demand is projected to rise from about 5 TWh today to roughly 22 TWh by 2030 (NESO Clean Power 2030) and about 33 TWh by 2035, driven overwhelmingly by AI.
The grid queue is the bottleneck. The National Energy System Operator counts about 140 data centres (roughly 50 GW) in the transmission connection queue, and estimates only around 13 GW of large demand can connect before 2030.
London supply cannot keep up. Take-up hit a record 183 MW in 2025, has exceeded new supply for five consecutive years, and vacancy is set to fall toward a record low near 6% by end-2026.
Investment is unprecedented. Microsoft (£22bn to 2028), Google (£5bn), AWS (£8bn), Blackstone (£10bn at Blyth), and Nscale ($2.5bn), underpinned by the January 2025 AI Opportunities Action Plan and the AI Growth Zones.
Policy has re-geared toward data centres. Critical National Infrastructure status (September 2024), the December 2024 NPPF “grey belt” reforms, and the TMO4+ grid-connections reform (live June 2025).

Who it is for

Financial-modelling professionals building project- and portfolio-level data-centre models
Infrastructure and private-equity investors
Developers and operators
Hyperscale and AI off-takers evaluating UK entry or expansion

Data sources

DSIT’s official GB capacity estimate, NESO Clean Power 2030 and Future Energy Scenarios, Ofgem, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the House of Commons Library, CBRE, Savills, Arizton, Mordor Intelligence, ResearchAndMarkets, techUK, and operator disclosures.

Methodology

eFinancialModels uses AI-assisted research and drafting tools alongside human research, source verification, and editorial review. Every claim, statistic, source, chart, and recommendation was reviewed and verified before publication. Forward-looking statements are labelled and reflect analyst judgment.

Pair this study with a template

This study frames the sector-level context — demand drivers, the power and planning constraint, pricing, competition, and scenarios. To turn that context into project-level cash flows, pair it with a data-centre financial model template from eFinancialModels. The study informs the assumptions; the template is the separate tool that turns them into an underwriting.

Get the study

Download the UK Data Centres Market Study 2026–2031 and the source-verification workbook, then build your model with an eFinancialModels data-centre template. Enter your email to receive the full PDF and data pack.

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