Summary
- Current forecasts increase the prospect of wetter and stormier UK conditions through autumn and early winter.
- Westgate Global argues temporary weather protection should be planned and budgeted earlier in data centre builds.
- Programme risk comes from knock-on delays when weather prevents sequential construction packages from progressing.
A potentially wetter and stormier UK autumn is putting a familiar construction risk back onto data centre project programmes: how much work can continue when exposed parts of the build become difficult to use.
Warnings around a strong El Niño have raised the prospect of more unsettled conditions, although the weather pattern does not translate directly into a guarantee of severe disruption at individual UK sites.
The more practical issue for contractors is whether unfinished buildings and critical work areas can remain productive through heavy rain and high winds.
Westgate Global chief executive Murray Gates argues that temporary weather protection is still too often procured reactively.
“Unfortunately, engineered weathering is too often seen as what you reach for ‘if the weather turns’, rather than a planned, budgeted part of the build programme. This must change if data centre builds want to stay on track,” argues Murray.
Weather protection becomes programme protection
Data centre construction programmes rely on tightly sequenced structural, envelope, mechanical, electrical, fit-out, and commissioning work.
If weather prevents one package from progressing, the effect can extend beyond the task originally scheduled for that day.
Internal works may depend on parts of the permanent envelope being weather-tight, while materials and electrical spaces can require protection before sensitive equipment is installed.
Gates said the approach needs to be considered before adverse conditions arrive.
“From the outset, data centre operators, contractors and quantity surveyors must consider how to mitigate against the challenge of building in live – and increasingly unpredictable – environments. When it comes to weather protection during the build process, procurement decisions are often boiled down to cost. Should the weather suddenly change this leaves projects susceptible to delays that could have been avoided had the right infrastructure been installed from the start.”
Westgate has a commercial interest in that argument as a supplier of temporary weathering and containment systems, and claims about the scale of future data centre delay should be read as the company’s assessment rather than an independent industry forecast.
The underlying construction question is narrower.
Temporary enclosures and screens cannot prevent every weather-related stoppage. High winds may still halt crane operations, while site flooding, transport disruption, and severe storms can affect work irrespective of the building envelope.
They can, however, determine whether some internal activities can continue before the permanent façade and roof systems are complete.
The decision is therefore less about predicting exactly what autumn weather will do and more about how much programme resilience a project is prepared to purchase in advance.
For builds already operating against tight energisation and customer dates, even conventional British autumn weather can make that calculation expensive if it is left until the site is wet.
