Demand for datacentres is strong across Europe, but delivery is constrained by power supply, skills shortages, and supply chain and planning issues that are bad enough in some cases that organisations miss deadlines or lose orders. Meanwhile, most datacentre professionals don’t think current facilities are fit for purpose for artificial intelligence (AI) deployments.
Those are the findings of The BCS Consultancy’s recent Datacentre truths 2026 survey, which questioned 3,000 respondents in the datacentre space. The largest number – 25% of respondents – were colocation operators, with corporate occupiers (13%), developers and investors (12%), IT integrators and network operators (both 11%). Respondents accounted for 7.1 million metres2 of datacentre space under their control in 41 countries.
While all (100%) developers and investors questioned had increased their portfolios in the past six months, 93% of all questioned think 2026 will be characterised by supply constraints. Three-quarters (75%) reported higher labour and delivery costs, while 86% reported supply chain volatility. A massive 95% reported skills shortage affecting delivery of datacentres, with that likely to worsen further.
BCS Consultancy COO Chris Coward said: “Demand will continue to outstrip supply, and capacity constraints are here to stay. How fast we overcome them depends on delivering new infrastructure and resources. But physical capacity isn’t the only limit – skilled labour is a bottleneck. Without it, projects stall, timelines slip, and even viable investments can fail. Power may show where development is possible, but skilled people make it happen.”
Pressures on supply of skills resulted in 77% of respondents reporting increased operating and labour costs, 75% saying skills shortages have put pressure on existing staff, and half (50%) saying they have had difficulties meeting deadlines or client requirements due to skills shortages. Nearly one-tenth (9%) said they had lost orders due to the lack of available skills.
A number of corporate respondents (12%) said they planned to increase in-house datacentre capacity, in a move aimed at greater control over their own facilities. That figure is up from 4% in the last BCS survey.
According to the survey, 78% of respondents had reported a “notable uplift” in demand related to AI in 2025, with nearly all developers and investors (100%) and service providers (91%) reporting AI-driven demand. Having said that, only 20% of datacentres are considered AI-ready, but that will rise to 70% by 2030.
Nearly all (90%) of those questioned regarded power availability as a key site selection factor. Regarding energy supply, 89% expected 90% of datacentre energy to come from renewables by 2035. Meanwhile, 70% believed recent geopolitical events will accelerate the move towards locally generated renewables.
In the report, BCS Consultancy CEO James Hart said: “We can no longer assume that power is a procurement step; we need to treat power deliverability like we treat a secured anchor tenant. Without it, the rest of the model is speculative. What real projects are showing is that grid access, queue position and deliverability dates are becoming the market, they decide where anything gets built, who wins deals and what gets financed.”