European data centre take up in the first quarter of 2012 was the highest for two years, underpinned by strong activity in London’s wholesale market, according to new research from global property adviser CBRE.

The levels of wholesale take up in the London market reached circa 8,000 sq m (12MW) in the first three months of 2012, almost double the entire take up in the capital during 2011 (which stood at circa 4,100 sq metres (6MW), further underlining London’s role in the global data centre market. CBRE’s quarterly European Date Centre ViewPoint analyses the five tier one data centre markets across Europe – London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Madrid. The research found that despite concern over wider economic factors, demand for data centre space in Europe’s major markets is continuing. Across all markets demand from the Technology, Media and Telecoms (TMT) sector continues to dominate transactional activity and new enquiries, with interest from Cloud providers featuring heavily.

Andrew Jay, Executive Director, Data Centres, CBRE, said: “The strong demand from the technology sector continues to drive take-up both in London and further afield. This has been boosted by rapid growth in information technology use which has placed increasing pressure on existing data centre resources.  “Cloud interest continues to grow with the added flexibility it affords currently very attractive to IT professionals. We have seen this area develop quickly, with both IT companies offering a Cloud service and end users deploying private cloud infrastructure taking new data centre space.” Remarking on the performance of London; “London’s is a major centre for a diverse mix of corporate occupiers.  There is evidence to suggest that organisations that have been holding back on committing to new data centres, are having to deploy new IT infrastructure to remain competitive.” 

CBRE predicts that the challenging business conditions across Europe will continue to subdue data centre demand.  Expectations are for end of year take up to be marginally higher than that of 2011.