The Prime Minister’s new initiative to ‘unleash’ artificial intelligence to drive economic growth has underlined the strong potential for new construction work on data centres across the country.

By accepting all 50 recommendations of the AI Opportunities Action Plan, the government hopes the new technology can be adopted widely across the public sector and speed up planning consultations to boost building activity. New AI growth zones to accelerate planning for AI infrastructure are envisaged.

AI is a heavy user of data centre capacity, and its growth is driving significant new construction activity.

The recent Glenigan Construction Industry Forecast 2025-26 highlights the growth of data centres as a key driver of new office construction in coming years. Overall, it predicts an 18% increase in underlying office sector starts this year followed by a further 4% growth next year.

Scale of new activity

The December Glenigan Construction Review underlined the scale of some of the data centre projects where work is due to get underway. It notes that detailed plans have recently been approved for the £750 million Bidder Street Data development for SINEQN in east London. Work is set to start this spring on the scheme involving almost 75,000 sq m of space and running for 24 months (Project ID: 22299265).

Glenigan data also highlights the dramatic scale of other data centre projects in the pipeline. Three tech companies – Vantage Data Centres, NScale, and Kyndryl – recently announced plans to invest £14 billion in data centres.

At Vantage Data Centre in Bridgend in Wales, detailed plans have been granted to build one of Europe’s largest data centre campuses (Project ID 24156197). Work on the £50 million project is set to start this autumn.

Meanwhile, NScale is planning a 50MW data centre at Loughton in Essex, also valued at £50 million, which is at the pre-planning and pre-tender stage and with work set to start early next year (Project ID 25020750). NScale also plans to start construction of multiple modular UK-based data centres in the second half of this year.

Elsewhere, Kyndryl has announced plans for a new £20 million tech hub in Liverpool, with work pencilled in to start in 2027 (Project ID 25027315).

One of the UK’s largest data centre developments currently underway is Google’s £790m development in Hertfordshire, which started on site in spring 2024 (Project ID 23299434).

Glenigan data highlights numerous other data centre projects which offer potential for new construction work.

Potential for construction

At Chesham in Bucks for example, detailed plans have been granted and work is set to start this spring on the £200 million Echelon LCY20 data centre (pictured). A main contractor has yet to be appointed on the project which will cover over 26,000 sq ft of space (Project ID: 21472016).

Smaller data centre schemes are also getting underway. Work is set to start this April on a £10 million scheme of four data centres for client Virtus, on a site in High Wycombe where various industrial units are being demolished to make way for over 37,000 sq m of new space (Project ID: 05455298).

Growth in the sector is also generating tendering opportunities in the regions. At Salford in the North West, detailed plans have been granted for two data centres for AE Technology Services. Work on the £24.05 million scheme is set to get underway in late spring this year and run for 14 months (Project ID: 22356013).

The longer-term work pipeline in the sector is also looking healthy. On one development, Bath Road Data Centre in Slough, outline plans have recently been granted for two data centres in a £254.7 million scheme for Segro. Work on the project of almost 80,000 sq m of space, is scheduled to start in early 2027 and run for 37 months (Project ID: 23369974).

A huge £8 billion scheme for Amazon Web Services involving a five-year plan to create new hyperscale data centres across the UK to support AI and digital infrastructure was unveiled by the tech giant last October. Locations have yet to be announced but work is set to start this coming autumn (Project ID: 24262128).

Meanwhile, what will be Britain’s biggest data centre is being planned on a site near Heathrow by Tritax Big Box Reit. The group has bought 74 acres of land for a three-storey, facility involving some 448,000 sq ft of space for a project costing £356 million with work set to start in the first half of next year.