Marc Edmondson and Cameron Bell

The data centre sector has undergone dramatic transformation over the past five years. Power demands have surged as hyperscale operators have started to expand across the globe – largely pushed on by the meteoric rise of B2B and B2C AI technologies.

Savills, the global real estate advisor, has looked to position itself at the very centre of this evolution, offering comprehensive consultancy services spanning the entire data centre lifecycle. Its EMEA data centre division works with major hyperscalers, well-capitalised operators and institutional investors alike.

Cameron Bell leads Savills’ data centre transactions business for EMEA. He heads a London-based team that collaborates with colleagues across European markets. His career path into the sector reflects how rapidly the industry has matured.

"About five years ago, data centres were part of our European industrial business run out of London," Cameron explains. The firm received numerous enquiries about data centre opportunities and the technical complexity demanded specialists who could focus solely on this kind of asset class.

From there, Savills began hiring experts from within the data centre industry. Cameron joined to provide real estate expertise. His background included high street retail and insolvency work on major restructurings including BHS, Debenhams and Thomas Cook.

The timing was perfect – Cameron entered the sector just as hyperscale facilities began dominating the market. Previously, large data centres rarely exceeded 50 MW. Power consumption then exploded over a three-to-five-year period.

"For me, that's the norm," Cameron says of the current scale of data centre projects. “I’ve grown as the sector has shifted.”

Marc Edmondson then joined Savills in the spring of 2025 as Data Centre Director within the Project Management team, part of the company’s Building & Project Consultancy (BPC) division. His arrival speaks to the firm's ambition to offer integrated lifecycle services in this booming sector. Marc brings with him deep technical expertise from his background in architecture and hyperscale project delivery, where he worked on hyperscale projects across the UK, Dublin, Finland and the Netherlands.

"I was really brought on board to widen that service offering," Marc says. Savills already possessed multiple service lines relevant to data centres. The opportunity lay in uniting these capabilities under coordinated leadership.

With AI growing all the time, the demand for data centres is expected to continue to skyrocket well into the foreseeable future. Marc mentions autonomous vehicles as just one technology that will require huge data centre infrastructure to operate.

"If we look at the decision-making computing that's going to be required to support that, and this is just one aspect, that in itself is significant," Marc notes. Each new application category adds incremental requirements.

The sector also faces competition for grid capacity. Electric vehicle charging infrastructure needs substantial power. Commercial vehicle electrification will demand even more. Residential heat pumps replacing gas boilers add to the load. Everyone wants the same constrained resource.

Renewable energy expansion offers partial solutions. Data centre operators champion renewables both for sustainability commitments and cost management. But building generation capacity takes time, just like everything else in the energy sector.

With so many things to consider, Cameron, Marc and the team at Savills are always kept on their toes.

"Every day's a school day,” Cameron says. “I pick up some sort of new piece of knowledge on an almost daily basis. I absolutely love the fact that I'm constantly learning.”

For Marc, the huge growth of data centres is an incredibly exciting prospect, not just for his career, but for society more generally.

"I see data centres as a force for good within the world, and I remain very optimistic about that future," he says.