United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, also known as the United Kingdom (UK), is a stable constitutional monarchy presiding over England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom has a population of over 65.14 million and an internet literacy rate of 92% (59.93 million internet users). London, the capital of the United Kingdom, has been and continues to be an important financial services hub for worldwide operations and, as a result, contains the bulk of the countries data centers.

Data Center & Telecommunications Economy

The total GDP of the United Kingdom is over US $2.86 trillion and with a contribution of 8% from the digital economy, the United Kingdom’s data center industry is thriving. Besides the United Kingdom’s data centers, the digital economy includes 33.613 million fixed line telephone subscriptions and 80.284 million mobile telephone subscriptions.

Data Center Markets

The United Kingdom contains several data center clusters throughout the country providing plenty of colocation opportunities. The primary colocation data center markets in the United Kingdom are:

• London
• Manchester
• Leeds
• Birmingham
• Woking

The United Kingdom is very well connected to North American and Europe with the majority of submarine cables landing in Cornwall. There are 428 British data centers, the majority of these colocation facilities are located in and around London. Large carrier neutral British data centers feature rich ecosystems and state of the art equipment, ensuring maximum uptime and connectivity to over 833 service providers.

British Rankings

Cloudscene compares and ranks data centers, cloud service providers and network fabrics in a given market by a range of different qualities including ecosystem size and network size.

Richest Data Center Ecosystems

The top five colocation facilities in the United Kingdom are:

1. TELEHOUSE London (Docklands North/North Two)
2. TELEHOUSE London (Docklands East)
3. LD5
4. LD8 - 8/9
5. LD4

Top Data Center Operators

The top five data center operators in the United Kingdom are:

1. CenturyLink
2. CenterServ
3. Digital Realty
4. Equinix
5. Colt Technology Services

Top Service Providers

The top five cloud service providers in the United Kingdom are:

1. Colt Technology Services
2. Zayo
3. euNetworks
4. Cogent Communications
5. GTT Communications

Energy Distribution

Energy is a significant issue for data centers and the United Kingdom has good coverage of the energy sector. The United Kingdom is energized by 17.3% renewable or green sources, with the remaining provided by fossil/nuclear fuels. This gives British colocation facilities significant opportunities to take advantage of green energy. In addition to green energy, data center consumers enjoy a range of PUE scores between 1.12 and 1.85. The average PUE for British data centers is 1.27. British colocation facilities provide over 1268.14 MW of power and has a range of rack power options from 1.50 kW to 8.00 kW.

Natural Disasters

The United Kingdom enjoys relative safety with only three natural disaster concerns of any interest. The most prominent risks to data centers in the United Kingdom are floods, earthquakes and storms.

Service Providers

The United Kingdom’s communications industry is regulated by Ofcom (Office of Communications). Major players in the carrier space include:

• BT
• Telefonica
• Vodafone
• Hutchison 3G UK
• EE

While the top three service providers are:

• Colt Technology Services
• Zayo
• euNetworks

There are numerous smaller providers as well.

Cloudscene British Facts

• Total number of British data centers: 428
• Total number of cloud service providers: 833
• Total number of network fabrics: 11
• Latest British data center added: MANOC 7
• Latest British data centers service provider: UKFast
• Number of certified colocation facilities in the United Kingdom: 111