New research has revealed construction activity is hitting record levels across the UK's regional cities.

The latest reports in the Deloitte Real Estate Crane Survey UK series monitor construction activity in Belfast, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester. As developers' confidence for city centre residential development remains strong, each city has seen a sustained/increased level of development across a range of sectors including offices, residential, hotels, retail, education and student housing.

In Birmingham, the Survey recorded 24 new construction starts breaking ground in 2017. The city's residential development has accelerated with 13 schemes starting construction, up 30% on the previous year, delivering 2,500 new units in 2018 alone.

In addition, student housing schemes are up 53% and are set to deliver at total of 1,782 bed-spaces. Birmingham's office development has surpassed one million sq ft for the second consecutive year, with over 1.4 million sq ft currently under construction.

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Elsewhere, Manchester's city centre residential sector has seen 20 new residential schemes start construction last year, exceeding 2008 levels for the second year running, With a total of 41 housing schemes, the Survey reports 11,135 units will be delivered to market.

Further progress is being witnessed in the city's office sector, with five new developments set to bring the total office space currently under construction to 1.5 million sq ft. Developers are also not shy of building upwards, as six residential schemes will exceed 25 storeys on completion.

In Leeds, the number of residential units under construction across the city centre is at its highest in a decade - 1,586 units across five development sites. Four new starts in the higher education sector has added over half a million sq ft to the development pipeline, with the city continuing to deliver good volumes of new office space with three new construction starts last year.

The Belfast Crane Survey, now in its second year, has recorded nine new schemes and a total of 25 schemes under construction. Despite residential development being lower in volume compared to over cities, the sector has started to grow. However, hotels dominate Belfast's figures with over 1,000 new hotel rooms currently being built and all due to complete this year, the highest number of any of the cities in the survey.

Simon Bedford, partner and regional head at Deloitte Real Estate, said from the Survey's results residential development is the sector to stand out this year.

"The surveyed cities have shown a marked increase in housing development, in some cases doubling activity from the previous year," he said.

"Our UK crane survey data shows a collective total of nearly 17,000 residential units currently under construction in these cities, ensuring housing targets are being taken seriously and developers are striving to meet demand."

(LM/MH)