# The data centre rush

Britain has declared data centres critical national infrastructure, designated five AI Growth Zones, rewritten planning rules for them and recorded tens of billions of pounds in announced investment. The state measuring the build itself is newer than the boom: the first official electricity figures arrived in June 2026, there is no official count of the sites, and nobody measures their water. In Scotland, where the energy logic points, organised resistance has arrived, and ministers moved in August 2026 to take back control.

Source page: https://britishresilienceindex.com/deep-dive/data-centres
Machine readable data: https://britishresilienceindex.com/data/deep-dive/data-centres.json
Period: August 2026

## Two years of policy at speed

Since September 2024 the state has rebuilt its posture on data centres faster than on almost any other class of infrastructure: a security designation, a national plan, five designated zones, a new planning route and the first ministerial green belt approvals. Almost all of it is enabling machinery rather than delivered capacity.

**Events**

| date | label | detail |
|---|---|---|
| 12 Sep 2024 | Critical National Infrastructure | Data infrastructure becomes the first new CNI sector since space and defence in 2015: a dedicated government monitoring team and prioritised security agency access. A security status; it changes no planning law and carries no funding. |
| 25 Sep 2024 | Blyth: the first mega announcement | Blackstone commits 10 billion pounds to an AI data centre at Blyth in Northumberland. |
| 6 Dec 2024 | First green belt call in allowed | Ministers allow a 65,000 square metre data centre at Iver, Buckinghamshire, on appeal, accepting it is inappropriate green belt development but finding very special circumstances. A second, Abbots Langley (84,000 square metres), follows in May 2025. Both appeals were recovered for ministerial decision on 8 July 2024, four days after the general election. |
| 13 Jan 2025 | AI Opportunities Action Plan | AI Growth Zones created, Culham named first; 14 billion pounds of private commitments announced within 48 hours; a pledge to grow public compute twentyfold by 2030. |
| 17 Jun 2025 | The water gap goes official | The Environment Agency's National Framework for Water Resources addresses data centres for the first time, states large sites can consume millions of litres a day, and admits it cannot obtain consumption data. |
| 15 Jul 2025 | NESO plans for a demand surge | Future Energy Scenarios 2025 puts data centre demand at about 7.6 TWh and projects roughly 33 TWh by 2035 on its ten year forecast. |
| 31 Jul 2025 | CMA finds the cloud market broken | The cloud services investigation finds Microsoft and AWS hold significant unilateral market power in a 10.5 billion pound market and recommends digital markets investigations. |
| 16 Sep 2025 | Tech Prosperity Deal | 31 billion pounds of AI infrastructure commitments recorded around the US state visit, Stargate UK launched, and the North East becomes the second AI Growth Zone. |
| 6 Nov 2025 | Ofgem: the queue triples | The regulator reports grid demand connection applications grew from 41 GW to 125 GW in seven months, with data centres a significant share of the growth. |
| 8 Jan 2026 | A planning route of their own | Regulations take effect letting data centre developers opt into the nationally significant infrastructure regime, bypassing local planning. Three directions granted by July 2026; the first, a Buckinghamshire campus of up to 300 MW. |
| 29 Jan 2026 | Fifth AI Growth Zone | Lanarkshire joins Culham, the North East, North Wales and South Wales. Government credits the five zones with 28.2 billion pounds of prospective investment. |
| 30 Jun 2026 | The state starts measuring | DESNZ publishes the first official estimate of data centre electricity use, statistics still formally in development. ONS follows in August, noting data centres are not separately visible in the national accounts. |
| 17 Aug 2026 | Scotland moves to take control | In one day the Scottish Government directs councils to notify ministers of every data centre application over 50 MW within 7 days, recalls the refused Edinburgh scheme's appeal for its own decision, and orders environmental impact assessments on two live applications. |

## Tens of billions announced, framed by government itself as intent

Every figure below is an announced commitment as recorded in a government publication, dated to its announcement. None is audited, delivered spend; several are explicitly aspirational in the government's own wording, and the rolling totals government quotes overlap one another. The largest single verified aspiration, Blackstone's aim to invest over 100 billion pounds in UK assets over a decade, is exactly that: an aim.

| label | display | value | framing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft (Sep 2025) | £22bn | 22 | committed, AI infrastructure and operations |
| Vantage Data Centers (Jan 2025) | £12bn | 12 | announced commitment |
| Blackstone, Blyth (Sep 2024) | £10bn | 10 | committed to one site |
| Google (Sep 2025) | £5bn | 5 | announced, includes Waltham Cross opening |
| CyrusOne (Oct 2024) | £2.5bn | 2.5 | plans, operational from 2028 |
| CoreWeave (2024 to 2025) | £2.5bn | 2.5 | cumulative announced |
| Microsoft (Nov 2023) | £2.5bn | 2.5 | committed, the pre Deal wave |
| CloudHQ, Didcot (Oct 2024) | £1.9bn | 1.9 | set to develop |

- **Note**: Named announcements with a gov.uk record, largest first. NVIDIA has committed GPU volumes (120,000 across the UK) but no pound figure exists in the official record. Stargate UK (OpenAI, NVIDIA, Nscale) is recorded as up to 8,000 GPUs initially with potential for about 31,000, with no committed pound figure.
**Cumulative**

| date | claim | scope |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 2024 | over 25 billion pounds | data centre investment since July 2024 |
| Jan 2025 | 39 billion pounds | in the six months to January |
| Sep 2025 | 31 billion pounds | Tech Prosperity Deal AI infrastructure |
| Dec 2025 | 44 billion pounds | AI commitments since July 2024, DSIT annual report |
| Jun 2026 | 28.2 billion pounds | prospective investment credited to the five AI Growth Zones |

## Three official numbers, an order of magnitude apart

What data centres draw today, what the system operator models, and what developers have asked to connect are three different numbers, and they are routinely conflated. The metered figure is 4.5 TWh. The connection queue is 50.8 GW of capacity requests, most of which NESO itself expects never to be built.

**Three**

| value | label | desc |
|---|---|---|
| 4.5 TWh | measured, 2024 | DESNZ meter level estimate: 2% of the 249.2 TWh Great Britain drew from the grid. Up 41% since 2020. |
| 7.6 TWh | modelled, 2024 | NESO's capacity times utilisation estimate. DESNZ publishes the gap directly: for 2023, NESO modelled 7.6 TWh against 4.1 TWh metered. |
| 50.8 GW | requested connections | Data centre capacity in NESO's demand call for input, 55% of all demand sought. Developer intent, not confirmed deliverability. |

**Projection**

| year | low | high | tyf |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,024 | 7.5 | 7.6 | 7.7 |
| 2,030 | 13.2 | 24.7 | 20.1 |
| 2,035 | 19.7 | 40.7 | 33.2 |
| 2,050 | 30.3 | 70.6 | - |

- **Projection note**: NESO FES 2025 data centre demand, TWh: the ten year forecast and the range across the four FES scenarios. By 2035 the forecast is roughly a fourfold increase on the modelled 2024 level.
**Queue facts**

- NESO's call for input, summarised in March 2026, logged 92,947 MW of demand connection requests; data centres were 50,802 MW of it across 152 project phases
- 58% of that data centre capacity had no final investment decision; only 32% of projects had secured off takers
- NESO evidence to Parliament puts about 59 GW of data centres waiting at transmission level, 40 projects of 500 MW or more, against an average existing GB data centre of 12 MW
- Ofgem reported the whole demand queue growing from 41 GW in November 2024 to 125 GW in June 2025, against a GB peak demand of about 45 GW, and expects a significant number of projects to be non viable

## One town uses more than a quarter of it

Measured consumption is intensely concentrated: the South East and London account for 77% of Great Britain's data centre electricity. Slough alone drew 1.3 TWh in 2024, 29% of the national total and 65% of all grid electricity consumed in the town, double its 2020 level. The new growth zones are an explicit attempt to pull the next wave north and west, towards power.

| label | display | value |
|---|---|---|
| Slough | 1.3 TWh | 1.3 |
| Hillingdon | 0.5 TWh | 0.5 |
| Tower Hamlets | 0.4 TWh | 0.4 |

- **Rows note**: Top local authorities by measured data centre electricity consumption, 2024. Hillingdon's use is five times its 2020 level and 28% of the borough's grid consumption. In 2022 the Greater London Authority reported new applicants for over a megawatt in west London being quoted no grid capacity until as late as 2035.
**Zones**

| name | date | detail |
|---|---|---|
| Oxfordshire (Culham) | Jan 2025 | the first zone, on the UKAEA fusion campus |
| North East (Cobalt Park and Blyth) | Sep 2025 | hosts Stargate UK; up to 30 billion pounds potential, 1.1 GW of power planned in six years |
| North Wales (Anglesey and Trawsfynydd) | Nov 2025 | announced with the up to 100 billion pound ambition for the programme |
| South Wales (Bridgend and the M4 corridor) | Nov 2025 | designated alongside the Welsh Government |
| Scotland (Lanarkshire) | Jan 2026 | 8.2 billion pounds announced, up to 500 MW of compute on on site renewables; in August 2026 a 300 million pound package arrived, part guaranteed by the National Wealth Fund |

- **Zones note**: Designated zones get priority grid connections, wholesale electricity cost reductions from April 2027 of up to 24 pounds per MWh in Scotland, and 25 years of full business rate growth retention. Government credits the five with 28.2 billion pounds of prospective investment and more than 15,000 jobs.

## Where the energy logic points, and the backlash began

Scotland is the place the system's own arithmetic recommends: wind rich, grid constrained, and the only part of Britain where locating demand reduces waste rather than adding strain. It is also where organised opposition has broken through, and where ministers moved in August 2026 to reassert control. Both halves are documented.

**Energy case**

- NESO curtailed 13% of potential wind output in 2024/25, which it attributes to the large share of wind capacity being connected in Scotland, at present a constrained region of the network; managing thermal constraints cost 1.7 billion pounds, up 64% in a year
- Its evidence to Parliament: with sufficiently strong locational signals, a maximum of 20% of future data centre demand could locate in Scotland, using renewable power behind the constraint rather than curtailing it, subject to connections and system security on low wind days
- The price signal already exists: both Scottish transmission zones carry a zero floored locational demand charge, against up to about 14 pounds per kW in south west England, and growth zone data centres are promised up to 24 pounds per MWh off electricity costs from April 2027, subject to legislation, the deepest discount of any zone, funded by recycling the constraint savings they create
- Scotland generated the equivalent of 113% of its own electricity consumption from renewables in 2022, the latest year that measure was published, and exported a third of its generation in 2023

**Flashpoints**

| place | project | record |
|---|---|---|
| Larbert, Falkirk | Apatura, 300 MW | 7,202 public comments on the council planning portal, the overwhelming share reported as objections. Awaiting decision. |
| Auchtertool, Fife | Cato campus, 600 MW | 1,661 documents on the portal, a reported holding objection from SEPA over flood risk, and a ministerial direction in August 2026 that it requires environmental impact assessment. |
| South Gyle, Edinburgh | about 210 MW, former RBS headquarters | Refused unanimously by councillors in February 2026 on national planning policy climate grounds; the appeal has been recalled by Scottish Ministers for their own decision. The council later voted to call for a national moratorium. |
| Chapelhall, North Lanarkshire | DataVita, the AI Growth Zone site | The consented application drew 8 public comments. The organised opposition is at the merchant sites, not, so far, the growth zone. |

**Response**

| date | event |
|---|---|
| 18 Jun 2026 | The First Minister confirms there is no national definition of the green data centres that national planning policy privileges; ministers had earlier told Parliament it is judged case by case |
| 25 Jun 2026 | At First Minister's Questions, Gillian Mackay cites 24 live applications and claims they would use up to one and a half times Scotland's peak power demand; John Swinney says he is actively considering national planning guidance |
| 21 Jul 2026 | A Scottish Parliament petition for a hyperscale moratorium opens; it stands at over 20,000 signatures |
| 17 Aug 2026 | Ministers direct that every application over 50 MW be notified to them within 7 days, recall the Edinburgh appeal, and direct that two proposed schemes require environmental impact assessment |

**Water**

- Scottish Water's own figures cut both ways: the 13 data centres on public supply today draw a combined 97 cubic metres a day, 0.006% of what it supplies, but it is in discussion with developers on more than 15 further sites
- Its stated hierarchy puts treated effluent first and drinking water last, and it says unsustainable proposals can be redirected or refused
- The same utility warns, in its climate adaptation planning, that Scotland's water supply deficit during drought could quadruple from 60 to 240 million litres a day as sustained low rainfall periods become more common

**Gap items**

- The Scottish Government told Parliament in January 2026 it holds no centrally maintained dataset of data centres in the planning system, and in February that it has made no assessment of their electricity demand
- The Scottish Parliament's research service states there is no single official source on the number, location or size of data centres in Scotland, current or proposed

## The input nobody measures

There is no official measurement of data centre water use in the United Kingdom. The Environment Agency's 2025 national framework addresses the sector for the first time, says large sites can consume millions of litres a day, and concedes it cannot obtain the data: without it, the agency writes, it is unable to accurately model or predict future water needs. Some water companies, it notes, have already refused data centre applications.

**Facts**

- Thames Water has identified 108 proposed hyper or large data centres in its supply area, each potentially demanding peak water equivalent to thousands of homes
- Affinity Water, whose region covers the Slough to west London corridor, counts about 125 proposed or under construction, told Parliament data centre demand is not in its statutory water resources forecasts, and has received individual requests of up to 35 litres a second, the peak demand of 3,500 homes
- One proposal sought 21 million litres a day, the water needs of roughly 147,000 people
- An industry survey with Environment Agency involvement, the only sector wide evidence so far, found 51% of responding sites use waterless cooling; it is not an official statistic

- **Note**: Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee and a Lords drought inquiry are examining exactly this absence. Until someone measures it, every national claim about data centre water use, reassuring or alarming, is unverifiable.

## The build out is visible in one number: capital spending

The nearest official lens is the hosting and data processing industry, SIC 63.11, which is both broader than physical data centres and blind to those run inside firms classified elsewhere. Its enterprise count has grown only gently, from 2,665 in 2010 to 3,220 in 2025, and three quarters of those businesses have fewer than five staff. What moved is investment: the sector's capital expenditure more than tripled in a single year, from 1.3 billion pounds in 2023 to 4.3 billion in 2024.

**Enterprises**

| year | count |
|---|---|
| 2,010 | 2,665 |
| 2,011 | 2,725 |
| 2,012 | 2,880 |
| 2,013 | 2,920 |
| 2,014 | 2,965 |
| 2,015 | 3,105 |
| 2,016 | 3,130 |
| 2,017 | 3,115 |
| 2,018 | 3,130 |
| 2,019 | 3,185 |
| 2,020 | 3,120 |
| 2,021 | 3,130 |
| 2,022 | 3,065 |
| 2,023 | 3,045 |
| 2,024 | 3,120 |
| 2,025 | 3,220 |

**Abs**

| year | capex | turnover |
|---|---|---|
| 2,015 | 520 | 6,888 |
| 2,016 | 357 | 6,437 |
| 2,017 | 296 | 7,350 |
| 2,018 | 495 | 8,553 |
| 2,020 | 463 | 9,254 |
| 2,021 | 988 | 10,698 |
| 2,022 | 1,037 | 12,742 |
| 2,023 | 1,326 | 13,008 |
| 2,024 | 4,347 | 16,240 |

- **Abs note**: ONS Annual Business Survey, class 63.11, UK. Turnover reached 16.2 billion pounds in 2024, roughly double 2019. The capital series is acquisitions; 2019 is suppressed for disclosure. Employment on the business survey is about 48,000 in Great Britain, provisional for 2024. Survey estimates; the latest year is routinely revised.

## A 10.5 billion pound market the CMA calls broken, twice shy of acting

The competition regulator's cloud investigation, concluded July 2025, found customers spent 10.5 billion pounds on UK cloud services in 2024, growing about 29% a year, with Microsoft and AWS each holding 30 to 40% of infrastructure services and, in the CMA's judgment, significant unilateral market power behind high barriers to entry and switching. It recommended digital markets investigations into both. In March 2026 the CMA board chose instead to open one investigation, into Microsoft's business software ecosystem, while accepting voluntary movement on data egress fees, and found no material progress on the licensing practices it had criticised.

- **Note**: Market shares are published by the CMA only as ranges. An illustrative CMA calculation: prices 5% above competitive levels would cost UK cloud customers about 500 million pounds a year.

## Critical national infrastructure, largely uncounted

For a sector the state has declared critical, the official record is strikingly thin, and where measurement exists it is weeks old, not years. The gap is closing, but the boom is outrunning the counting.

| claim | status |
|---|---|
| An official register or count of UK data centres | Does not exist. DSIT holds an internal dataset of colocation sites; it is unpublished. The nearest official figure is a statistical byproduct: DESNZ matched meters at 2,423 commercial sites. |
| Official electricity statistics | First published 30 June 2026, formally still in development, Great Britain and commercial sites only. Before that, data centres sat invisibly inside post and telecommunications in the national energy tables. |
| Official water statistics | None. The Environment Agency states it cannot obtain the data; statutory water resource plans do not include data centre demand in their forecasts. |
| An industrial classification | None. Parliament's own library notes that without one the sector's economic impact is difficult to identify; ONS wrote in August 2026 that data centres are not separately visible in the national accounts. |
| Delivered capacity from the announced boom | No official measure. Capacity figures in circulation (about 1.6 GW today, about 6 GW by 2030) are industry estimates quoted inside official documents, not government statistics. |

## What we would ask

**How much of the announced investment will be delivered?**

Unknowable from the official record, which counts announcements. The government's own rolling totals, 25 then 39 then 44 billion pounds, overlap and mix firm commitments with explicit aspirations such as Blackstone's aim of over 100 billion pounds across a decade. No official series tracks delivery against announcement.

**Can the grid actually supply a 50 GW queue?**

The queue is not a plan. NESO says most of it lacks final investment decisions and expects many projects to be non viable; Great Britain's entire peak demand is about 45 GW. The system operator's own forecast is for demand to roughly quadruple by 2035, to about 33 TWh, well within total system growth but heavily dependent on where sites connect.

**Why does Slough matter so much?**

Measured consumption says the existing estate is extraordinarily concentrated: 65% of all grid electricity in Slough already goes to data centres, and the South East plus London take 77% of the national total. Concentration is why west London ran out of grid headroom in 2022 and why the new zones deliberately point north.

**Should water constrain where they are built?**

Nobody can say with evidence, because nobody measures it. The Environment Agency admits the gap; the statutory planning system does not forecast data centre demand; and single requests as large as the needs of 147,000 people have reached one supplier. The honest answer is that the constraint is unquantified, which is not the same as absent.

**Is the state catching up?**

Partly. The first official electricity estimates arrived in June 2026 and ONS began national accounts work in August 2026. But there is still no register, no classification, no water measurement and no delivery tracking, for infrastructure the government itself designated critical in 2024.


## Sources

- DESNZ, Data centre electricity consumption in Great Britain 2020 to 2024 (30 June 2026) (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-trends-june-2026-special-feature-article-data-centre-electricity-consumption-in-great-britain-2020-to-2024)
- NESO, Future Energy Scenarios 2025, data workbook sheet F.47 (https://www.neso.energy/publications/future-energy-scenarios-fes)
- NESO, Demand Call for Input, high level summary (March 2026) (https://www.neso.energy/document/378226/download)
- Ofgem, open letter on the surge in demand connection applications (6 November 2025) (https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-11/Demand%20connections%20update.pdf)
- Ofgem, call for input on demand connections reform (12 February 2026) (https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2026-02/2026-02-12-Demand-Connections-Call-for-Input.pdf)
- ONS, UK business: activity, size and location 2025 (https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/bulletins/ukbusinessactivitysizeandlocation/latest)
- ONS, Annual Business Survey, non financial business economy sections A to S (26 May 2026) (https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessservices/datasets/uknonfinancialbusinesseconomyannualbusinesssurveysectionsas)
- ONS, Data centres and the UK national accounts (24 August 2026) (https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/uksectoraccounts/methodologies/datacentresandtheuknationalaccounts)
- CMA, cloud services market investigation, final decision (31 July 2025) (https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/cloud-services-market-investigation)
- DSIT, data centres designated critical national infrastructure (12 September 2024) (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/data-centres-to-be-given-massive-boost-and-protections-from-cyber-criminals-and-it-blackouts)
- The Infrastructure Planning (Business or Commercial Projects) (Amendment) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/13 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2026/13/contents/made)
- MHCLG, section 35 direction, Wapseys Wood data centre campus (16 March 2026) (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-centre-campus-wapseys-wood-buckinghamshire-section-35-direction-planning-act-2008)
- gov.uk, AI Growth Zones collection (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ai-growth-zones)
- DSIT and No10, Tech Prosperity Deal announcements (16 to 17 September 2025) (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/us-uk-pact-will-boost-advances-in-drug-discovery-create-tens-of-thousands-of-jobs-and-transform-lives)
- Environment Agency, National Framework for Water Resources 2025, chapter 9 (17 June 2025) (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-framework-for-water-resources-2025-water-for-growth-nature-and-a-resilient-future)
- Affinity Water, written evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee (DCU0083) (https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/166455/html/)
- Scottish Government, data centre planning direction and recall (17 August 2026) (https://www.gov.scot/news/data-centre-planning-direction/)
- Scottish Parliament, Official Report, First Minister's Questions (25 June 2026) (https://www.parliament.scot/api/sitecore/CustomMedia/OfficialReport?meetingId=20188)
- Scottish Parliament petition PE2233, hyperscale data centre moratorium (https://petitions.parliament.scot/petitions/PE2233)
- National Planning Framework 4, National Development 12 (green data centres) (https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-planning-framework-4/pages/5/)
- Falkirk Council planning portal, application P/26/0237/FUL (Larbert) (https://edevelopment.falkirk.gov.uk/online/)
- SPICe, Scottish Parliament research briefing on data centres (June 2026, updated August 2026) (https://spice-spotlight.scot/2026/06/26/data-centres/)
- Scottish Parliament written answer S6W-42878 (no central dataset of data centres in planning) (https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/questions-and-answers/question?ref=S6W-42878)
- NESO, written evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee (DCU0081) (https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/166090/)
- Fife Council planning portal, application 26/01243/PPP (Auchtertool) (https://planning.fife.gov.uk/online/)
- Scottish Government, energy statistics for Scotland Q3 2023 part 2 (renewable share of consumption) (https://www.gov.scot/publications/energy-statistics-for-scotland-q3-2023-part-2/)
- Scottish Water, climate change adaptation plan (February 2024) (https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/About-Us/News-and-Views/2024/02/290224-Climate-Change-Adaptation-Plan)
- Scottish Water Horizons on data centre water demand (June 2026) (https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/about-us/news-and-views/2026/06/110626-colin-lindsay-data-centres-blog)
- SEPA, data centres in Scotland: a guide to our regulatory role (https://beta.sepa.scot/topics/energy/data-centres/)
- NESO, 2025 annual balancing costs report (June 2025) (https://www.neso.energy/document/362561/download)
- NESO, final TNUoS tariffs for 2026/27 (January 2026) (https://www.neso.energy/document/376336/download)
- Scottish Government, energy statistics for Scotland (https://www.gov.scot/publications/energy-statistics-for-scotland-q3-2025/)
- DSIT, Lanarkshire named fifth AI Growth Zone (29 January 2026) (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/more-than-3400-jobs-and-targeted-support-for-local-communities-to-help-tackle-the-cost-of-living-as-lanarkshire-named-latest-ai-growth-zone)
- DSIT, UK Compute Roadmap (17 July 2025) (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-compute-roadmap)

## Caveats and data notes

- Investment figures are announcements as recorded in government publications, dated to their announcement. They are not audited or delivered spend, the government's rolling totals overlap one another, and several commitments are explicitly framed as aspirations in the official record itself.
- DESNZ electricity figures are Official Statistics in Development: Great Britain only, commercial data centres only (colocation, hosting and hyperscale), excluding sites run inside firms classified to other industries.
- SIC 63.11 is an imperfect lens: it includes web hosting and data processing businesses that are not data centres, and misses data centres owned by firms whose dominant activity is classified elsewhere, as ONS itself set out in August 2026.
- Connection queue capacity is developer intent, not a construction pipeline: NESO and Ofgem both expect a significant share of queued projects never to be built.
- CMA market shares are published only as ranges; point estimates are redacted in the CMA's own decision.
- Widely quoted counts of about 500 UK data centres and about 1.6 GW of capacity are industry estimates that appear inside official documents; they are not government statistics.
- Scottish planning portal comment totals were checked directly on the portals; objection and support splits within them are as reported from the portals by others. The claim that 24 live Scottish applications would exceed the nation's peak demand was made in the Scottish Parliament chamber by Gillian Mackay MSP and is hers, not a government statistic.
- Scotland's 113% renewables figure is for 2022, the latest year the Scottish Government has published that measure; its 2024 renewable generation was 73.1% of electricity generated in Scotland.

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British Resilience Index, a non-partisan UK civic data project. Every figure is
reconciled to its primary official publisher before it is shown. Free to cite with
attribution: https://britishresilienceindex.com