Manchester is booming – the wider city centre population has ballooned from 10,000 in  2008 to 70,000 in 2018. While Birmingham is dubbed the UK’s second city, Manchester’s wider metropolitan region is now of a similar size. Office for National Statistics figures indicate that construction output in the North-west was running at 10 times the national average in 2018, making the region one of the busiest in Europe. 

The city gained a new recordholder for tallest building last year with the completion of Deansgate Square South Tower – the fifth highest in the UK – and the Mancunian accolade is set to be passed on again in a few years’ time with the Trinity Tower X, which will stand at 213m. You can barely move for the cranes and the roadworks and the construction site hoardings. 

But will the North-west’s well-documented connectivity challenges continue to hold it back? What impact is Manchester mayor Andy Burnham having with his devolved city mayoral powers? And what challenges does construction face when delivering on major projects in the city? To find out, Building spoke to construction experts with years of experience in delivering projects in the region.

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