The Datacentres Europe IV report, published by consulting firm , found that significant growth will occur in the wholesale data centre segment in Europe over the next three years, and data centres will increasingly target vertical segments such as cloud, media and finance.

Meanwhile the Big 4 markets, which represented around 85% of data centre Capex in the first quarter of 2012, will continue to attract huge focus. London's importance as a financial hub and telecoms centre, together with its extensive use of outsourcing and managed services, has guaranteed its position as one of the Big 4 since the early 1990s.

However, the report suggests that space is increasingly an unreliable and arguably misleading metric for data centres, and power supply has become more of a priority. This is not just a matter of cost, but also availability, quality, diversity, renewables, competition, regulation and other factors, according to BroadGroup.

This change of tack could have a significant impact on London's long-term status as one of the top four European data centre markets, because power is becoming increasingly expensive to obtain and is potentially subject to high taxation and regulation. The report warns that the UK's reliance on gas imports could lead to brown-outs as early as 2013.

"Short-term, it has made limited difference as demand is still strong, viable alternate options scarce, and most users still like data centres close to their business hubs," Steve Wallage, managing director of BroadGroup Consulting told Techworld.