The Top 500 is the list of the tallest buildings in the u.k featuring every building over 500ft. For the sake of this list we measure not to the tip of the spire (in which case the Heron Tower would be 727ft) but to the top of the roof. This allows us to get a more accurate idea of the true height of buildings as ever since the race in the late twenties in New York developers have been using spires and needles to increase the height of their buildings for the sake of it.

To see the status of every building check out the legend to the right and match the colours up. If you're not in London and wonder where your city is I'm afraid it isn't anywhere unless you live in Birmingham (which has recently seen doubts as to the viability of projects there) as the rest of the U.k is sadly lacking in tall buildings and it's for this reason there is no national list, it's a bit pointless really.

The list as you can see has changed quite a bit over the past few months, since the last update of this page in April the number of active proposals over 500ft has increased from 19 to 32 which is pretty impressive going. Please note the dates on the table refer to the start of the groundwork on the project, not the year it will be completed.

By rights 2004 should have been the year of the crane. You'd have expected St Georges Wharf tower to start but for the dogmatic anti-skyscraper attitude of Lambeth council, and for 110 Bishopsgate to also commence although the refusal of Norton Rose to move seemed far out given the enthusiam of Ronson to build his skyscraper at the public inquiry.
It now seems only two will actually start in London this year - Columbus Tower and Crossharbour. Both sites require demolition but groundwork for them should be underway before the year is out. London Bridge Tower will also see work but the demolition length will mean this project will not be starting ground and foundation work before 2005. It seems unlikely we will see any major cores go up on the skyline this year as a result but 2005 will certainly be the year of the crane.

London's top 500 skyscrapers - all active proposals over 500ft qualify.

Britains top skylines don't have much in them either when you get away from London. Manchester and Birmingham are almost neck and neck whilst both Leeds and Liverpool are nearly tied too.

If you want to find out more about buildings in your city (and it can be any city in the uk) then we also have available a PDF file. You will need Adobe Acrobat reader to view it, preferrably a plug-in to your browser but this list is the 2001 list for every building over 65m in the whole country. To view it click here. Thanks to Jon Smith and John Parkin for their work in creating this list.