Growing and rapid investment in AI infrastructure is creating a significant new commercial lighting market, with UK data centre lighting set to more than double in value to around £130 million by 2030, according to UK commercial lighting manufacturer, Whitecroft Lighting.
This figure would represent 14% of today’s UK commercial lighting market, placing data centre lighting ahead of more established sectors, such as commercial office lighting, and entertainment and leisure, both 13%, and education at 11%[i].
Data centre lighting was worth around £54 million in 2024, approximately 6% of the UK commercial lighting market, but with UK data centre development and construction set to grow from approximately £13 billion in 2024 to £32 billion by 2030, Whitecroft anticipates demand for specialist lighting across both hyperscale and enterprise facilities to rise substantially.
“The scale of investment going into data centres is creating a significant new market for UK lighting manufacturers, however, it also represents a new and very different commercial and technical environment”, explains Richard Williams, Head of Strategic Projects at Whitecroft Lighting.
“As a big manufacturer, it is impossible to ignore the value of a market forecast to reach £32 billion by 2030. To put that into perspective, that is three times more than this year’s NHS estates capital investment budget.”
However, despite the clear and sizable opportunities, analysis by Whitecroft Lighting’s Strategic Projects’ team has revealed new industry challenges for those competing to enter the supply chain.
Richard continues, “Our assessments indicate that lighting is 60% less valuable as a proportion of the overall cost of data centre construction, when compared to more traditional buildings, such as commercial office space.
“Suppliers must understand that data centre operators are grappling with huge new systemic challenges, such as access to the grid, renewable energy, and water for cooling.
”In the face of these major issues, data centre designers need a clear reason to switch suppliers. That means manufacturers such as Whitecroft must keep innovating to create clear reasons for change.
“The momentum behind this growth is already clear. More than £6 billion of investment in the UK’s AI economy was announced during London Tech Week alone, including major commitments to expand AI computing and data centre capacity.”
Richard concludes, “Whitecroft Lighting is drawing on its increasing knowledge of large-scale, critical infrastructure projects, particularly where security and resilience are key considerations. Our factory-assembled data hall lighting and ability to deliver a complete lighting solution across an entire data centre campus is proving attractive, and we are currently delivering projects in Germany and Portugal.”
Whitecroft manufactures all its products at a large Greater Manchester facility, and in 2022 custom-designed and manufactured the first LED lighting specified for the UK nuclear industry, installing 40,000 LED luminaires at Hinckley Point C in Gloucestershire.
It also supplied £3 million worth of lighting to Manchester Airport’s flagship Terminal 2 rebuild and refurbishment projects, supplying 25,000 lights.
[i] https://store.barbour-abi.com/the-future-of-lighting-in-the-uk-key-trends-and-market-forecasts/
