Zoho will open a UK data centre in the first quarter of 2026, allowing customers to keep data within UK borders.
Concerns surrounding data sovereignty have reached fever pitch in recent years, and customers are now keen for the data they generate to remain within the confines of the geographical borders that it is generated within. With Zoho having a large number of customers in the UK – it’s only natural for the company to set up a data centre here to serve them.
It comes as the company reports 43% growing in the UK and a tripling of its local headcount over the past two years. The whole move is being pitched at UK organisations with stricter data-residency needs, including in the public sector and financial services. Zoho said the onshore facility will also support delivery of its AI-driven services to domestic customers.
As part of the same timeline, the firm will relocate its UK office from Bletchley to Milton Keynes to accommodate a larger team. Zoho added that its UK strategy continues to centre on “Transnational Localism”, with more customer-facing roles across sales, support and marketing.
Zoho’s UK Managing Director, Sachin Agrawal, said, “In a constantly moving landscape impacted by geopolitical tensions and economic instability we are focusing deeply on enhancing the customer experience we provide to our UK customer base.
“We understand the shift to customers wanting to host their data within the boundaries of the UK, which is particularly important in industries such as the public sector and financial services. Data privacy and protection continue to be at the core of our operations and is enhanced further with our new data centre.
“Investment in our new office space enables us to continue to strengthen our growing team, ensuring that we not only deliver the best software solutions, but the best service and support from those with an excellent local knowledge of the market to our UK customers. The UK is our largest and longest served market in Europe, and our third largest globally with huge growth potential. We are committed to investing further to continue to deliver what our customers want and need.”
Zoho already has a primary data centre in Amsterdam, as well as a secondary data centre in Dublin serving the European market. The new data centre in the UK will bring the total number in the region up to three. That’s more than its competitor Hubspot, which hosts just one data centre in Europe, but fewer than Salesforce, which announced the opening of a London AI centre last year.
