Westgate Global launches strategy to support UK data centre market growth

Westgate Global has launched a dedicated data centre strategy, building on almost five decades of experience protecting project momentum on mission-critical builds. Our approach draws on our expertise in designing, engineering and installing purpose-built protection screening and partitioning systems for complex build environments.

This launch comes as the UK data centre market enters a period of rapid expansion. Data centres were classed as Critical National Infrastructure in 2024. The government has since set a target of 6GW of AI-capable data centre capacity by 2030, roughly tripling current capacity, backed by its AI Growth Zones initiative spanning Oxfordshire, North and South Wales, the North East and further regions.

Growing demand puts pressure on UK data centre construction

The wider UK data centre market, valued at around £5.6billion in 2025, is forecast to reach £9.36billion by 2034. All of this is putting contractors and data centre operators under pressure to deliver more and faster at sites right across the country.

This pressure is colliding with increased risk of extreme weather that can cause huge delays to build schedules and mounting costs for both operators and contractors - if that risk is not designed and planned for early on in data centre build programmes.

The so-called “supersized” El Niño, is now firmly established according to experts - with an update from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) saying there will be big impacts globally on rainfall and temperature patterns and associated risks of floods, drought and extreme heat. In the UK, the Met Office said it’s expected we’ll experience wetter, stormier conditions throughout autumn and winter.

Protecting data centre construction schedules

Our data centre strategy brings a formal, dedicated focus to the work we have quietly built up in the UK, US and Europe. As the UK market accelerates towards the government's 2030 capacity target, we are well positioned as the go-to partner for operators and contractors who need weather risk designed into a build programme from day one.

Flexiscreen®, our engineered weathering screen, wraps around data centre builds keeping out wind, rain, temperature swings and dust, the things that stop a data hall build in its tracks when the weather turns and it keeps critical server room and data hall construction moving whatever the forecast.

As part of our ongoing strategy, we recently appointed Andy Thomas as Data Centre Lead. With decades of experience, Andy provides expertise into the design and planning stage of data centre build schedules.

Speaking on the launch of our strategy, Murray Gates, Westgate Global CEO, said:

“The UK data centre market is rapidly growing and the pressure is on for contractors to complete projects as quickly and efficiently as possible. Westgate Global’s data centre strategy brings decades of experience working in challenging mission-critical environments to deliver a solution to this market that not only helps protect momentum on data centre builds, but actually helps accelerate project completion too.”

On the growing threat extreme weather poses to build schedules, Murray added:

“We are already working with operators, contractors and consultants discussing the importance of weather risk management and the need for robust and reliable solutions. Given the pressure to deliver, allocating budget to this area of the build project from the outset is crucial to minimising downtime - especially as the market scales - and to avoid snowballing costs further down the line.

“Data centre builds require specific weather conditions day-by-day to stay on schedule but those conditions rarely happen and they look set to get even rarer. That’s why it’s going to be so important for the industry to move away from a common practice of patchwork fixes after the weather event has happened to planning for them well in advance - our weather is becoming predictably unpredictable.”

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