The UK data centre lighting market is projected to reach around £130 million by 2030, more than doubling from approximately £54 million in 2024, according to UK commercial lighting manufacturer Whitecroft Lighting.
As the UK has become a major location for European data centre development, the company notes there has been an increasing demand for lighting and mechanical and electrical (M&E) infrastructure.
Data centre lighting currently represents around 6% of the UK commercial lighting market. Based on the projected 2030 market value, this could rise to around 14%, exceeding the shares attributed to commercial offices and entertainment and leisure lighting (both at 13%) and education lighting (at 11%).
Whitecroft estimates that the wider market will grow from £13 billion to £32 billion over the next four years, with the expansion of AI contributing to demand.
“The unprecedented growth of the UK data centre market presents both big opportunities and challenges to lighting manufacturers,” says Richard Williams, Head of Strategic Projects at Whitecroft Lighting.
“It’s impossible to ignore a growing £32 billion market on your doorstep. To put that in perspective, the entire capital investment budget for NHS estates is around £10 billion this year.
“However, data centres present a unique environment, both in their complexity and scale, with developers facing systemic challenges, such as access to the grid and renewable energy, technical resilience, and access to water for cooling all taking precedence over more traditional construction and M&E.”
Data centre projects create larger lighting contracts
Richard explains that the value of data centre lighting relative to construction costs is lower than in typical commercial buildings.
He continues, “As a result, Whitecroft’s Strategic Projects team have calculated that the value of data centre lighting, when compared to the overall cost of construction, is 60% lower than for a typical commercial building.
“However, such is the size of the latest multi-billion-pound hyperscale data centres that larger manufacturers, such as Whitecroft Lighting, can offset this by fulfilling big, varied contracts.”
Whitecroft says it has increasingly focused on large infrastructure projects where security and resilience are key considerations. In 2022, it secured a contract to design and manufacture LED lighting for Hinkley Point C, supplying 40,000 luminaires. The company also supplied £3 million of lighting for Manchester Airport’s Terminal 2 redevelopment, providing 25,000 lights.
Whitecroft has since secured contracts to supply lighting for two data centres, one in Portugal and another near Frankfurt, Germany.
The company is one of 13 specialist lighting brands within the European Fagerhult Group. Several brands within the group are collaborating on data centre projects across Europe, including Veko Lightsystems in the Netherlands.