Cranes are often seen as economic weathervanes, signalling shifts in investment patterns and reflecting market confidence and development activity before broader trends become evident in economic data. Drawing on perspectives from RLB experts across more than a dozen cities, we asked one simple question: If you looked out across the skyline today, where are the cranes moving? The answers reveal more than construction activity.
“Across major UK and European cities, the most significant construction activity is coming not from new towers but by adapting existing assets and delivering infrastructure beyond traditional urban centres. As development viability tightens and the circular economy takes hold, refurbishment and adaptive reuse are becoming more prevalent. At the same time, critical and linear infrastructure are shifting demand into new geographies. The implication is that the industry’s skills, supply chains and commercial models may still be configured for a market that is already changing beneath them.”
Birmingham – Paul Beeston, Partner – Head of Industry and Service Insight
“Madrid’s growth is being driven by digital infrastructure and large-scale urban regeneration. The region has 216 MW of operational data centre capacity, with a further 522 MW under construction and projections of up to 1.7 GW by 2030, reinforcing its position as a leading Southern European technology hub. Meanwhile, Campamento will deliver 10,700 homes, while Madrid Nuevo Norte will provide 10,500 homes across 3.4 million m², backed by €18 billion of investment.”
Madrid – Javier Aspe Ortiz, Senior Cost Manager
“If you looked out across Berlin and Brandenburg today, the most surprising new source of construction activity would be data centres. Three years ago, Berlin was not considered a major digital infrastructure market and yet the region now has around 146MW of installed capacity and nearly 900MW of additional projects announced. This growth is being driven by AI, cloud computing and increasing demand for sovereign European data infrastructure. It signals Berlin’s emergence as Germany’s leading alternative to Frankfurt and a key hub for the next phase of digital investment.”
Berlin – Gillian McCrossan, Senior Associate
“A decade ago, cranes stretched towards the desert clouds, delivering record-breaking towers. Five years later, they elevated logos of branded residences across the skyline. Today, they move with purpose around data centres, logistics hubs, and critical infrastructure. Tomorrow, they will continue to swing across a maturing city, not as symbols of their booms, but of building smarter, renewing better and enabling the next generation of innovation.”
Dubai – Seb Davies, Director
“Looking out across the landscape of South Africa, the cranes are no longer confined to one story. They’re rising over data centre campuses, student residences and retail centres, while hospitality is resurging across KwaZulu-Natal, Cape Town and the Winelands. Three years ago, these were separate niches; today they signal a broader shift toward dense, tech-enabled living nodes alongside a renewed appetite for leisure and tourism infrastructure, pointing to where the country’s next growth cycle is taking shape.”
Pretoria – Nicolas Sheard, CEO
“Looking out from our project site office in Diriyah, the most surprising source of construction activity is the Diriyah project itself. Just three years ago, much of Riyadh’s western edge was largely undeveloped. Today, I can count 83 tower cranes from my window helping deliver what is becoming a US$70 billion new urban district. What makes this remarkable is that Diriyah is only one of several giga projects advancing across Saudi Arabia. Rather than being driven by a single asset class, the development combines heritage, culture, luxury hospitality, retail, public realm and premium residential communities in one destination. It reflects the Kingdom’s shift toward tourism, lifestyle and experience-led growth.”
Riyadh – Joe Dowlaty, Project Director
“Few would have associated Hong Kong’s development pipeline with specialist R&D buildings three years ago, but the Northern Metropolis is changing that. Supported by billions of dollars in public investment, new laboratories, research institutes and innovation campuses are being planned to support sectors ranging from life and health technology to AI and advanced manufacturing. This shift reflects Hong Kong’s ambition to become an international innovation and technology hub, creating demand for a new generation of highly specialised real estate and infrastructure.”
Hong Kong – Anderson Chan, Managing Director
“When you look across Singapore’s skyline today, the cranes tell a fairly clear story. Residential construction dominates, accounting for more 60% of active sites, and public housing makes up approximately 70% of those residential projects. Industrial development is the next major concentration at close to 20%, meaning these two sectors alone account for around 80% of construction activity. But another cluster increasingly visible is the healthcare sector, with major hospitals expanding alongside new hospital campuses. This tells us that Singapore’s next wave of construction is being driven less by commercial boom, and more by long-term demographic planning – meeting population targets, supporting a rapidly ageing population, and ensuring resilient housing, industrial capacity and healthcare infrastructure for a denser and mature city-state.”
Singapore – Silas Lo, Managing Director
“Cranes in Kuala Lumpur and Johor are increasingly building data centres rather than conventional commercial developments, driven by strong investment from global technology companies and Malaysia’s growing role within Southeast Asia’s digital economy. Alongside this growth, industrial facilities, logistics hubs and transport infrastructure continue to expand as manufacturers reposition supply chains and capitalise on Malaysia’s strategic location. While residential and commercial development remains active in selected locations, the market’s centre of gravity is gradually shifting towards projects that support economic resilience, digital connectivity and long-term productivity.”
Kuala Lumpur – Martin Lai, Director
“Beyond the headline Olympic infrastructure projects, a notable trend is housing-led urban intensification, driven by record population growth and Brisbane’s emergence as a genuine market of opportunity for capital, talent and investment. Greater Brisbane now has a major projects pipeline exceeding $100 billion, while South East Queensland is projected to reach around six million residents by 2046. A convergence of sectors, including residential, health, advanced manufacturing, logistics, technology and digital infrastructure, are all growing simultaneously. The result is a deeper, more diverse construction market that is attracting new industry participants and reshaping the city in ways unimaginable three years ago.”
Brisbane – Jamie Smith, Director
“The most striking change has been the acceleration of data centre development. Once a relatively specialised sector, it is becoming core national infrastructure as demand grows for cloud services, AI capability, cybersecurity and locally hosted data. According to DataCentres New Zealand, 56 data centres are operating nationally and another 20 are reportedly in planning. The pipeline is also moving beyond Auckland, showing that future investment will increasingly be shaped by access to renewable power, international fibre, suitable land and resilient infrastructure.”
Auckland – Steve Gracey, Managing Director
“While data centres have evolved from a niche asset class into a major driver of construction activity, the living sector is also transforming through build-to-rent (BtR), co-living, affordable and social housing. The state of New South Wales now has a BtR pipeline of approximately 17,500 apartments across more than 50 projects. Contractors are increasingly favouring these institutional housing projects over build-to-sell developments due to the certainty of a single client and reduced market risk, while interest in modern methods of construction is growing as the industry seeks to increase productivity, accelerate delivery and mitigate construction risk.”
Sydney – Oliver Nichols, Director
“San Francisco is entering a growth phase, largely fuelled by AI investment. Rents for vacant apartments have risen 14% and housing prices are increasing at double-digit rates. Office leasing has improved due to AI, lowering vacancy by 3.7% over the past year. Strong construction is also seen in healthcare, life sciences, public infrastructure and data centres, but speculative office development is stalled.”
San Francisco – Antonio Gonzalez, Cost Manager
RLB Crane Index® reports are produced biannually, covering the construction markets of Australia, Canada, the Gulf States, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa, the United States and Vietnam.
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