In addition to our own dedicated servers, located not far from our offices in Worcester, we also provide server management services for clients who have servers hosted with a range of UK hosts. The hosts look after the hardware and the network connectivity and Accentika Internet provides business support, troubleshooting and customisation for the servers and, importantly, applications running on the servers. If we install it, we'll support it.

In this role, we have sampled a range of UK dedicated server hosts, and I thought I would list some of those hosts here. Our requirements are generally that the servers are available with Centos/RHEL 5.x, with a minimum of 4Gb ram. But most hosts are usually offering some kind of deal on at least one of their packages.  

It is difficult to recommend a particular host â€” although Redstation do seem to offer good specifications for their prices. 

I haven't put prices in this overview as comparisons are difficult because the final price depends on factors which some hosts include as standard while others price up as extras... for example, raid configurations, additional IP addresses, bandwidth, control panels etc etc. In general, costs for suitable servers currently range from around £80-150/month. But changes to specs and special offers can make a big difference to what you can pay.

One feature I'm particularly attracted to is the remote server control offered by some hosts. It depends on how much configuration you are planning to do whether this is really worthwhile. But remote server control allows you access to the server  (usually via a web interface) even when it has dropped off the network.

Because we are doing most of the configuration, we tend to have pretty spartan requirements for the specifications, but the elements we look for (in addition to the luxury of the remote server management cards!) are the bandwidth and minimum contract. As we build up familiarity with other hosts I will try to add them here.

http://www.easyspace.com/dedicated_servers
Unlimited bandwidth

http://www.eukhost.com/dedicated-server-hosting.php
No minimum contract*
Metered bandwidth

http://www.fasthosts.co.uk/dedicatedservers/
Remote server control
Unlimited bandwidth

http://www.heartinternet.co.uk/dedicated-servers/
Unlimited bandwidth

http://www.poundhost.com/dedicated-servers/
Metered bandwidth
No minimum contract*

redstation.com/dedicated_servers.html
Remote server control
Unlimited bandwidth
No minimum contract*

http://www.lcn.com/servers
No minimum contract*
Unlimited bandwidth

http://www.uk2.net/dedicated-servers/
No minimum contract*
Unlimited bandwidth

German host active in the UK market

http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver-produktmatrix-eq/
No minimum contract*
Remote server control (optional)
Unlimited bandwidth