As AI becomes an undeniable integration in our everyday lives, it’s also a major factor in driving the surge of Data Centre construction projects in the UK. The UK’s digital infrastructure relies on more data centres to be built to store and manage data. However, where there’s a rise in the demand for building more data centres, there’s also the expected spike in energy usage that must be addressed.
According to Pulsant, training ChatGPT-3 alone produced the same amount of emissions equivalent to 123 gasoline-powered cars driven for a year.
Chief executive of the National Grid, John Pettigrew, has said that data centre power usage would increase six-fold in the next decade. This increase has been attributed to AI and quantum computing and will eventually cause strain on the grid if proper infrastructure isn’t delivered on time. Currently, data centres utilise nearly 1% of total UK electricity use.
The strain on the grid isn’t the only concern for this growing sector. Data Centres will have to adapt to help meet the Net-Zero 2050 policy implemented by the UK Government. While many data centres are shifting towards renewable energy sources, the pace of this transition is slower than the growth in demand for data services.
This blog has been updated since it’s original publication and refreshed with new and updated project information in 2026.
Data Centre Construction Projects in the UK
Barbour ABI’s vast project database has identified 171 data centre construction projects that have started in the last year and are due to start in the next 5 years.
See below for highlighted and major projects with details and links for the projects and companies on the Barbour ABI platform.
Northumberland Energy Park – New Cambois AI Data Centre
The project consists of the erection of ten data centre buildings totalling up to 540,000 square metres gross internal area. Ancillary structures, substation, emergency generators, perimeter fencing, extensive earthworks and more are also included in the project.
This project falls under the AI Growth Zone within the North East which has potential to be one of the largest data centre hubs in the UK and Europe.
The New Cambois AI Data Centre is reported to have a value of £10bn. The first phase of the enabling works has a target start-date of late 2025, with construction on the first phase of the data centres themselves to begin in 2027.
Search Project ID: 12785975 on the platform.
Elsham Wolds 1GW Data Centre Campus
Elsham Tech Park Limited are seeking planning approval for a £10bn 1GW data centre in North Lincolnshire on a former RAF air base. The data centre project has the potential to be one of the largest in the UK covering 1.5m sqm and is apart of the UK’s AI Growth Zone.
The project consists of construction of a data centre park, including ancillary offices, internal plant and cooling equipment, emergency backup generators with associated fuel storage, district heating centre, and more.
Once approved, the construction project is estimated to start in 2027 and due to take ten years to complete. According to Elsham Tech Park’s website, up to 900 full-time roles will be created with the project with average salaries of more than £50,000.
Planner: Pegasus Group
Architect: Chetwoods Architects
Landscape Architect: MHP Chartered Landscape Architects
Transport Consultant: David Tucker Associates
Search Project ID: 12849818 to view full project details.
East Havering Fen Lane 600MW London Data Centre Campus
The 600MW London Data Centre Campus located on East London’s green belt in Havering, is due to start June of 2026. This £1.7bn project faced opposition from environmentalists and the local council due to the development on the green belt. No planning application has been submitted as of yet.
The client of the project, Digital Reef, has announced that it will be a ‘zero carbon facility’ which will see a large 300-acre ‘ecology park’ built at the site for local resident use. Digital Reef has promised on-site renewable power generation and battery capacity to balance the grid. Search Project ID 12673017 on the Barbour ABI platform for more information and updates.
Equinix 30MW LD14 Data Centre
In May of 2024 Equinix Group Limited’s LD14 Data Centre project located in Slough was granted detailed approval. The project is set to see a 5-storey data centre facility with two data halls per floor, on Banbury Avenue. The proposal also outlines that there will be 13 emergency diesel generators (2.8MW combined), and on-site substation.
The project has been confirmed on-site since 2024 and site progress is at 75% according to our Construction Project Leads Platform.
Search Project ID 12685382 on the platform for more information and updates.
Slough is turning into quite the data centre hub as Equinix’s LD7-1 and LD7-2 buildings are also on Banbury Avenue. Alongside Equinix, there are 40 other data centre providers such as Kao, Virtus, Iron Mountain, CyrusOne, Digital Reality, and many others.
The project started in December 2024 and is set to finish September 2026.
Since the original publication of this blog the following companies have been added to the project:
Contractor: Laing O’Rourke Delivery Limited
Windows and doors subcontractor: Britplas Commercial Limited
Security subcontractor: Panthera Group
Foundations subcontractor: Expanded
Steel frame, floors, and stair contractor: BHC Limited
To view all the roles, and contacts assigned to this project, please get in touch.
Data Centre Projects in Manchester
While we’re seeing the majority of up-and-coming data centre projects sweep London and the southern regions, there are several data centre projects in Manchester of note.
Deep Green Technologies Limited, Urmston Data Centre
The £20m Deep Green Technologies 400kW high-density data centre located in Urmston is 95% of the way to completion. This data centre project is the first for Deep Green Technologies in the North West.
The project is co-locating with Move Urmston leisure centre to reduce on operating costs, and reduce gas costs as the heat from the data centre will warm the swimming pool. This move is a major pioneering motion in data centres as new research suggests that waste heat from the infrastructure could be used to achieve carbon-negative and water-positive statuses. The project is due to be completed in April 2026.
Salute Limited is the main contractor working on this data centre.
Search Project ID 12801528 on the platform for more information and updates.
Former Whites Site Data Centre
Plans for the £250m data centre in Salford have been approved at the former Whites recycling centre. The facility will be 66,000 sq ft set back on Liverpool Road. Peel Waters and Digital Land & Development are working in partnership as clients on the project. Other works include floorspace for digital infrastructure, ancillary office space, and a car park. The project is set to begin in March 2027 and finish in June 2030.
The mechanical and electrical engineer on this project is GDM Partnership.
Search Project ID 12824956 on the platform for more information and updates.
Data Centre Projects On Hold in Manchester
In this blog’s original publication, several data centre projects were due to be underway but have since been put on hold.
The Broadway House, Columbus Way – 2 Data Centres were due to start construction in June 2025 but according to our platform it has been marked as ‘on hold’ in March of 2026. The planning approval for this project did not come easily as it was first submitted in 2022.
Kao Data Campus’ £350 40MW Data Centre in Reddish, Manchester has been placed on hold. The project consists of the building of a three-story data centre. It was boasted as the largest, most advanced, and most sustainable in the north of England at the time of planning approval.
Originally expected to begin in August 2025, the project is now on hold but we’ll be monitoring it closely.
The following roles originally published in the blog are still as follows:
Civil Engineer: Tetra Tech (alongside Abstruct Consulting)
Landscape Architect: The Environmental Dimension Partnership
Surveyor: Kathryn Sather & Associates
Sustainability Consultant: Hoare Lea
Demolition Contractor: Demolition Services Group
Search Project ID 12706575 on the platform to view more role details.
Kao Data Centre Manchester Render
Edge Data Centre Construction Projects on the Rise
Companies such as Equinix, Digital Reality, and nLighten are leading the edge data centre charge in the UK.
Edge data centres are decentralized data centres that are located near the end-user to avoid data latency. Its proximity to the end-user allows the data centre to store, process, analyse, and send data directly rather than processing in a cloud or regional data centre.
A rise in these projects introduces more routes for sustainability and energy efficiency, a critical requirement for this sector. Edge data centres are investing in energy-efficient hardware, implementing advanced ventilation systems, and optimising server use to cut energy waste.
Edge data centres could play a key role in reducing strain on the grid as well as the environment as they’re also looking towards implementing renewable energy sources to power the facilities.
Data Centre Construction Market Report
The Data Centre Construction Market Report UK 2025-2029 provides powerful insight to this rapidly evolving market. It covers an overall market assessment, and analysis of sub-sectors and product categories.
Key issues covered in the report include:
- Analysis of the factors affecting the data centre market
- How AI’s rapid development will increase the need for significant processing power
- The battle between data centre construction and prioritising sustainability
Finding Data Centre Construction Project Information on Barbour ABI
The expansion of data centres in the UK is crucial for supporting the country’s digital economy but poses significant energy challenges.
To address these issues, there needs to be a concerted effort to enhance energy efficiency, increase the use of renewable energy, and consider innovative solutions like edge data centres.
Without these measures, the energy demands of new data centres could hinder the UK’s progress towards its sustainability goals and place an unsustainable burden on the National Grid.
Stay up to date with the latest UK data centre construction projects on the Barbour ABI platform.
Don’t have an account? Book a demo to see how you can track the exact projects you’re looking for in your target regions and sectors.
FAQs
Data centres are centralised facilities that house computing, storage and network equipment. They provide the necessary infrastructure for managing and processing large volumes of data and supporting the IT requirements of organisations.
Data centres can operate more efficiently when they are optimised to a particular workload type. As a result, different types of data centres have emerged.
Cloud data centres provide computing, networking, and storage resources that can be accessed virtually. Organisations rent virtual space, and, typically, physical cloud data centre facilities are owned and operated by cloud service providers.
Edge data centres are smaller scale and deployed in urban areas. Their primary aim is to offer low latency, a critical requirement for real-time applications, with demand especially driven by mass reliance on IoT and digital services provided over the internet, such as 4K video streaming, 5G mobile or connected vehicle technologies.
An edge data centre may be smaller, generally under 10MW (typically 250kW to 5MW, 20-100 IT cabinets, each holding around 40 servers). They are designed to connect to large or hyper-scale facilities and take the strain off those partners, making more efficient use of processing resources and enabling quicker response times.
Edge data centres lend themselves to modular design, they require less physical space and standby power, and smaller HVAC systems. They have less intensive power demands, less noise and emissions, all suiting them to the urban environment.
Their smaller scale also makes them more affordable from a capex perspective, opening the market to smaller, regional players. Small and medium-sized data centres can be fitted into converted premises such as warehouses, logistics distribution centres, industrial or manufacturing spaces.
AI Training Data Centres have the computing power to train and develop AI models in a safe environment. These are being sited away from urban areas as their requirement is to maximise processing, without the necessity to minimise latency.
As a rapidly changing field, data centres definitions will continue to grow with new language, such as exascale and megaflops, created in line with new capabilities and scales of data handling.
Subscribers of the Construction Project Leads Platform can find data centre projects via two ways:
- Advanced filtered search: search specifically for data centres in the project search bar, or scroll down to ‘Categories’ and select ‘Commercial & Retail’ to drop down options, check ‘High-tech offices, computer centres.’
- AI Search: Use our industry-first construction project AI search to source data centre construction projects right away.
