As London seeks growth opportunities and investment to reinforce its status as a world-class city, and after a decade of the London Tall Buildings Survey, we proudly present this year’s condensed report, highlighting pivotal insights into the latest high-rise developments across the capital. This edition draws upon data provided by the Greater London Authority through its Planning DataHub, allowing us to delve into critical topics such as evolving office space demands, the influence of new policies on housing development, and shifting market trends across London. 

Through our programme of events, we will unpack these topics further, and with guidance from the NLA Expert Panel on Tall Buildings, we will examine best practice examples that are shaping the future of London’s skyline. 

Denise Chevin MBE
 
This year’s NLA report on tall buildings reflects a very nuanced picture of development; a tale of two cities as it were. The landscape is marked by robust growth in certain sectors and notable challenges in others. Demand for Grade A office properties in the City of London continues to drive the capital skyward, while the sluggish housing market, high interest rates, and greater scrutiny of schemes by the new Building Safety Regulator have conspired to put the brakes on high-rise residential construction. Happily, plenty of signs that confidence in the building typology itself still exists. 

Headline figures from this year’s GLA planning data shows new applications for developments containing one or more tall buildings over 20 storeys have nudged up from 47 to 58 led by planning applications across east London and central London. Towers already rising in the City continue to drive a new ‘greener’ and smarter generation of mixed-use development and there remains a healthy pipeline, despite changed working patterns. 1 Undershaft, a 73-floor skyscraper set to match The Shard as the joint tallest in Western Europe at 309.6 meters, provided a huge vote of confidence in the enduring appeal of the City when it was granted planning permission in December 2024. The story for residential has not been so positive. Planning applications have seen a marked increase in rejections. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Changes forced on the London Plan by Robert Jenrick in 2021 when he was Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, have made it easier for boroughs to turn tall buildings away. Developers we spoke to for last year’s report were already feeling the impact of that. 

Residential operators have also been contending with the strong arm of the Building Safety Act, and its enforcer, the Building Safety Regulator. It is this new watchdog which now scrutinises any residential planning applications over six storeys. It’s been well publicised that many of them haven’t provided the safety assurances the BSR expects. Others that have met the first hurdle (Gateway 1) and went on to work up detailed designs have now found themselves blocked at a second assessment stage (Gateway 2). They are unable to start on site because they don’t comply with the Building Regulations. The process has been taking twice as long as expected (up to 22 weeks) just to get an answer. It's inevitable that such sweeping change will take some time to settle in and for people to adjust — they have to — and then cope with more change to come. 

New requirements for things like a second staircase have certainly added to viability challenges which are likely to continue for some time. What will come to the aid of high-rise residential developers are the new housing targets imposed on local authorities by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner in her quest to build 1.5 million homes. So too will the growth mantra coming from the Chancellor and the Mayor, if coupled with interest rate cuts. When the cycle does change, quality must not give way to quantity. While the public have taken iconic structures to heart, not all of the 270 odd tall buildings built over the last decade have met a high enough bar. If tall buildings are to be welcomed, rather than imposed, they must prove their worth. That means greener, more accessible, developments that provide safe and affordable places for people to live, work and relax.

© City of London / GMJ

Accompanying NLA's 2025 London Tall Buildings Survey, a fly-through video created by VU.CITY gives an idea of the tall buildings completed, under construction or where planning has been granted.

Here you can find the link to our Tall Buildings Directory, a collated space filled with London's tall building projects at the various stages of their life.

 The NLA London Tall Buildings Report 2025