The European data centre market is set to end 2019 with the highest ever level of annual activity

CBRE analysis shows that there was 38MW of take-up and 63MW of new supply across the four markets during Q3. London and Frankfurt were particularly strong on the demand side, and Amsterdam was responsible for nearly 50% of the new supply. Despite this strong performance, CBRE forecasts that market activity in Q4 will double that of Q3 to create a record year.

CBRE forecasts that 70MW of new take-up will be added to the FLAP market total in the final quarter, pushing the full year to beyond 200MW. This would be the first time on record that the four markets have breached 200MW of take-up in a single year. 

According to CBRE, a further 150MW of new supply will be brought online in Q4. The new capacity represents nearly 50% of all the new capacity in the four markets during 2019 and will equate to a 23% growth in total market size during the year.

Mitul Patel, Head of EMEA Data Centre Research at CBRE commented:

“These record levels of development underway in the major European markets are creating challenges. The availability of freehold land in popular data centre hubs, which offer proximity to large amounts of HV power and fibre routes, such as Slough in the UK and Schiphol in Amsterdam, is highly constrained. The effects of these barriers to entry are that data centre developers are either choosing to locate in new, sometimes unproven, locations or are competing aggressively on price for land opportunities.

“Despite cloud providers driving market activity, enterprise demand for colocation remains consistent across the major markets. CBRE analysis shows that in the four years from 2016, there has been an average of 43MW of enterprise take-up per year across the four FLAP markets. As enterprise companies continue to utilize colocation footprints as part of their hybrid IT architecture, we expect this to remain consistent.”