Onwards and Upwards: High-Rise Skylines Expand Beyond London

The number of high-rise buildings being built each year in the UK is gradually increasing and set to accelerate. With urban populations growing, and limited space to build, high rise is an important part of the solution to meet the demand for new homes. As well as homes, other significant uses for high-rise buildings, are offices and hotels. In the UK, London has dominated the high-rise construction sector, but we’re now seeing considerable amounts of building upwards in many other towns and cities across the country.

What is high-rise construction?

There is no absolute definition of a high-rise or tall building. A lot of it is contextual, with tall buildings exceeding the general building heights of those in the immediate vicinity and, therefore, altering the skyline. So, in the UK ‘high-rise’ can be defined as anything as low as five to ten storeys. When comparing buildings internationally, 50 storeys tends to be the threshold that’s used. Despite the contextual nature of defining tall buildings, in the UK the Council on Vertical Urbanism (CVU), concludes that buildings of 14 or more storeys, or 50m in height, could be considered high rise.

London – the epicentre of UK high rise

Most tall buildings in the UK are in London: 542 were completed between 2020 and 2025 – 57% of all tall buildings in the UK. They are of strategic importance, supporting London’s ‘world city’ status. The Eastern cluster of high-rise buildings forms a distinctive skyline, marking the highest density of commercial activity – equated with economic growth for the City. All but one of the UK’s tallest buildings are in London, including the 309.6m Shard, completed in 2013 and One Canada Square (236m), at Canary Wharf, now 35 years old. Only Deansgate Square South Tower, in Manchester, prevents the top 20 being a clean sweep for London high rise – and it’s still down at 13th on the list.

New high-rise buildings will continue to appear on London’s skyline in the near future, with 322 such structures due to be completed between 2026 and 2030. However, this is less than the previous five years and, while still representing just over half (51%) of the UK total, its share has fallen. New clusters of high-rise development in the Square Mile – City Cluster and Fleet Valley – are planned. However, the City of London Corporation’s vision to maintain the London skyline, including St Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London and the Houses of Parliament, means that planning decisions need to be carefully assessed.

New regional clusters for high-rise

Outside London, town and city skylines are changing – especially in certain regions, like the North West, Yorkshire and West Midlands – where most of the big cities are located. After London, the cities with the largest numbers of high-rise buildings completed in the last five years are Manchester, Salford, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool. In Greater Manchester, including Salford, 87 projects of 15+ storeys have taken place in the past decade, representing a total value of over £4.8bn. Manchester is now the seventh tallest city in Europe, with 26 skyscrapers (100m+ buildings).

Looking forward to the next five years, Manchester has the most high-rise buildings in the pipeline (after London), with 49 planned. This is followed by Birmingham, at 42, then Leeds and Salford. A £1bn development of ten skyscrapers in Salford, containing 3,300 apartments, includes a 273m tower, set to be the country’s third tallest building. Other cities experiencing notable high-rise activity include Glasgow, where the number of high-rise buildings is expected to have more than doubled by 2030, and Bristol. In addition, many other towns and cities around the UK, currently with few or no high-rise buildings, will see new 15+ storey structures – significantly changing their skylines.

Residential dominating regional high-rise construction

The most significant end-use sector is residential, accounting for 65% of high-rise buildings in 2025, up from 60% in 2021. This is likely to increase to almost three-quarters by 2028. Other important uses for high-rise buildings are offices and hotels.

The increase in residential high rise is driven by demand for homes. Also, investors and developers tend to get better rates of return from residential, compared to commercial projects. The emphasis on the residential sector is even stronger outside London. For instance, 73% of the high-rise project pipeline for the North West is residential, compared to 65% in London. In Yorkshire and Humberside and the South East, it’s 86%.

Strict planning policy kept the Manchester skyline relatively low during the 1970s and 1980s, however, the last decade has seen increasingly ambitious building, making it the UK’s fastest growing city. The Manchester Core Strategy 2012 to 2027 identified five regeneration areas, along with the City Centre. The relatively confined footprint of the city area dictates building upwards.

The city’s Places for Everyone Plan guides development through to 2039 for Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Thameside, Trafford and Wigan. This £1bn development plan targets 30 projects, spread across the city’s boroughs.

In Reading, in the South East, the latest revision of their Local Plan proposes a 20% uplift in housing capacity for the city and is accompanied by a Tall Buildings Strategy with a local definition of 10 storeys and a focus for the highest towers around the station area.

In Yorkshire, the 52 projects currently in the pipeline for Leeds represent a collective value of nearly £3.5bn. Nearly all projects are new build and all but nine are residential. While the progress of high-rise projects through the planning system has been slow in recent years, there are signs that delays for projects being assessed by the new Building Safety Regulator (BSR) are easing. It’s likely that more of us will be witnessing an evolving and rising skyline for the urban centres where we live.

The insights in this blog post are from our latest High-Rise Construction market report – UK 2026-2030, which contains over a hundred pages of analysis into this sector. It includes market size, forecasts, summary of the changing regulatory framework, regional breakdowns, project profiles, focus on materials used in high-rise buildings, as well as the suppliers, specialist consultants and contracts involved in their construction.