IONOS AND FASTHOSTS ACHIEVE TIER IV CERTIFICATION FOR WORCESTER DATA CENTRE

Turnover set to double for Davies (Redditch) with move to new headquarters

Civil engineering firm Davies (Redditch) Ltd is on track to double its turnover, as recent growth has brought about a move to new o ces.

The cable-laying business is forecast to reach a turnover of £8-10 million in 2023, up from £4 million last year. It represents swift progress for father and son Simon and Luke Davies, who established the firm three years ago.

Ionos, a leading European digitalisation partner for small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), and its UK subsidiary, Fasthosts, have secured Tier IV certification from the Uptime Institute, for their new £21 million data centre at Worcester Six Business Park, which opened last year.

As an independent third-party, the Uptime Institute’s tiering is one of the most recognised standards for data centre reliability and performance. It has four distinct levels with ‘Tier IV’ being the highest. Any data centres in this category possess fully redundant infrastructures and o er the least anticipated downtime or best performance because of fault tolerance, compared to other tiers. Most Tier IV data centres are run by banks or other organisations with highly sensitive data.

Markus Noga, Chief Technology O cer of Ionos, said: “We are very proud that our Worcester site is the only Tier IV constructed data centre facility publicly listed by Uptime Institute in the UK

“It’s our most modern and environmentallyfriendly Ionos data centre yet, and for it to have the highest level of certification is a remarkable achievement. Worcester will be a blueprint for our future data centres.”

O cially opened last October the 43,708 sq ft data comprises a 30,729 sq ft data centre and 12,978 sq ft of ancillary o ces.

The data centre is connected to the middle of the UK’s fibre figure of eight, linking the site directly to Ionos’ backbone network with an outside capacity of 3,000 Gigabit per second.

Ionos is one of a number of companies which have made Worcester Six their home over the last few years. Others include Kohler Mira, Kimal, Spire Healthcare and others. When complete, Worcester Six will provide more than two million sq ft of employment floor space. 850,000 sq ft has so far been delivered or committed across the scheme.

Luke said: “We started out as just the two of us, a van and a digger. We specialise in the telecommunications sector, and we saw a major surge in work during Covid, when everyone wanted fibre and broadband.

“Simon’s partner, Dawn Cooke, handles the back o ce and is now our financial director.

Davies now employs more than 130 sta and operates more than 50 vehicles on projects across the UK.

Luke added: “With our experience of building networks such as Virgin Media, BT, Gigaclear and City Fibre we have built a really strong reputation for our work with existing clients.

The new current unit on the Hunt End Industrial Estate, Redditch was secured on a five-year lease by Ian Parker on behalf of John Truslove.

He said: “The Davies family have built a strong company with an excellent reputation, which means they are winning a lot of work and needed the right premises as a platform for further expansion.”