Deloitte's regional crane survey has revealed a rise in new construction starts over the past year, but a decrease in total volume under construction, painting a mixed picture for 2025.

Source: Shutterstock/ Oleg Totskyi

Construction starts in the central areas of Belfast, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, the four cities monitored in the survey, jumped to 53 from 47 in 2024, following a slowdown in development in 2024.

However, the volume of units and floorspace under construction fell because of the smaller scale of some new projects, particularly in the residential sector.

Of the 53 new starts, 27 were residential projects, seven were offices, with a focus on refurbishment, eight were student schemes and five were hotels, plus one new start each in retail and education.

The survey reveals that 21,057 homes were under construction in 2025 and 8,885 were completed, down from 23,673 homes and 9,075 completions in 2024, as concerns over viability and delays caused by the Building Safety Regulator led to a downturn in development.

Circa 2m sq ft of offices were under construction during the year, down from 2.8m ft the previous year, amid reports of constrained development pipelines for offices.

John Cooper, infrastructure and real estate partner at Deloitte, said: “In 2025, the construction sector had to navigate several challenges including complex economics, with higher costs and new building regulations such as the Building Safety Act contributing to deliverability challenges.

“However, we have seen the impact of strategic public and private sector investment and collaboration, supplemented by developer sentiment shifting from cautious optimism to committed construction in a number of cases.”

He added: “Our research indicates a resilient pipeline, with healthy forward-looking activity across the student accommodation and hotel sectors and a more positive outlook into 2026 across the offices and residential sectors.

“A continued focus on strategic investment, timely decision-making and labour force skills to support construction delivery are key to catalysing the opportunities that exists across these cities.”