As anyone driving through the suburbs of Sydney has known for years, Sydney is currently going through a huge construction boom. This is occurring thanks to large scale residential developments being built, large commercial structures being developed as well as a huge increase in infrastructure spending for Sydney by the NSW government for major works such as Westconnex, the Sydney Metro, Stadiums & the Light Rail.
According to the recently published guide by RLB, Australia as a whole continent had a total of 722 cranes as of April 2020.
Sydney has a total of 299 cranes as of April 2020, with a large proportion of those cranes spread well out into the suburbs on various different types of developments. The distribution of cranes is heavily centred around residential apartment construction (78.9%) with a significant minority of cranes currently being used on commercial projects (10.7%), here is a full breakdown of the number of cranes in Sydney by industry:
| Construction Sector | Number of Cranes in Sydney | % of Total Cranes |
| Residential | 236 Cranes | 78.9% |
| Commercial | 32 Cranes | 10.7% |
| Civil | 15 Cranes | 5% |
| Health | 4 Cranes | 1.3% |
| Mixed-use | 4 Cranes | 1.3% |
| Hotel | 3 Cranes | 1% |
| Education | 3 Cranes | 1% |
| Recreational | 2 Cranes | 0.7% |
| Total | 299 Cranes | 100% |
Regions with a high concentration of cranes within Sydney:
- Sydney CBD (Barangaroo, Circular Quay & Mid-city)
- St Leonards
- North Sydney
- Macquarie Park
- Parramatta
- Liverpool
- Penrith
- Rockdale
- Hurstville
- Wentworth Point
- Rhodes
- Merrylands
- Granville
- Sutherland
- Redfern
- Epping
Breaking the crane count down into the regions within Sydney:
| Region | Crane Count | % of Total |
| Inner Sydney: | 92 Cranes | 30.8% |
| West: | 66 Cranes | 22.1% |
| North: | 62 Cranes | 20.7% |
| South: | 47 Cranes | 15.7% |
| East: | 32 Cranes | 10.7% |
| Total: | 299 Cranes | 100% |
The NSW Government will be fast-tracking a number of developments that meet certain criteria to help support the economy. This is occurring due to the COVID-19 pandemic in order to help keep the economy afloat and to support new projects which may not have been approved as quickly by reallocating resources within the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.
Major developments to come from this program include masterplans such as the Blacktown CBD plan, skyscrapers such as the victoria cross over station development & major infrastructure such as the Sydney Fishmarket Redevelopment are examples of such fast-tracked developments which will add to Sydney’s crane count in the future.
Sydney has the most cranes out of any major city in Australia representing a total of over 40% of all cranes in the country yet has a population of approx. 1/5 or 20% which shows the scale of the construction happening in the Greater Sydney Metropolitan area.
