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The UK has emerged as one of the top locations in the world to build data centres, according to a new Arcadis report.

The consultant said London鈥檚 position as the largest data centre market of any European city and the UK鈥檚 superior cyber security, which the report ranked as the best in the world, make the country a 鈥減rime target鈥� for data centre investment.

The analysis was published in Arcadis鈥� new Data Centre Location Index 2021, which ranks the top global markets for data centres worldwide.

It found that the UK was becoming 鈥渙ne to watch鈥� in terms of locations to build data centres, which were booming even before the pandemic and are now undergoing exponential growth as people increasingly move online.

Arcadis UK market intelligence lead Natalie Sauber said that nearly one billion people will become mobile broadband users over the next five years.

She added this would mean that many more data centres would need to be built to 鈥渃ope with this phenomenal growth in demand鈥�.

Out of 50 countries assessed in the report, the UK had one of the highest scores for energy security - a key factor for energy-guzzling data centres, which already account for around 1% of global electricity usage.

The UK鈥檚 location also made it a 鈥渃ritical interchange鈥� between North America and Europe, with over 50 undersea cables contributing to its status as a global communications hub.

But the report warned that Brexit posed a risk, with its impact on data hosting and media streaming potentially meaning that operators would need to build additional capacity on both sides of the channel.

Sauber said: 鈥淎lthough a data centre can be located nearly anywhere, there are a number of critical factors that influence cost and return on investment. 

鈥淔rom the availability and reliability of renewable energy sources, and the ease of obtaining construction permits, to the price of electricity, cybersecurity, data protection and privacy regulations; all of these things can differ significantly depending on where a facility is located.鈥�

The report ranked 50 markets based on each market鈥檚 performance in eight key areas - GDP per capita, dealing with construction permits, price of electricity, energy security, cybersecurity, domestic market size, the number of mobile broadband subscriptions and mean download speed.