Infrastructure: the overlooked engine of visibility
Infrastructure:
the overlooked
engine of visibility
12.11.2025
ING’s first Infrastructure Index maps online conversations across 45 UK cities, revealing where infrastructure dominates the narrative, and where there’s room to lead it.
Rebecca Evans, Head of Infrastructure
Jake Nunley, Cities Specialist
Everyone knows infrastructure is essential, that the rest of the built world can’t function without it – but how much do people actually care about it?
At ING, we have measured how much and how often infrastructure features in online conversations about 45 UK cities, revealing where it drives visibility, and where opportunities are being missed.
Our new Infrastructure Index reveals that across five of the UK’s biggest cities*, infrastructure is talked about more than sustainability, investment or housing and planning. In short, it's a major part of the public conversation about cities.
Total number of conversations in 2024-2025, by theme in five major UK cities
*London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol.
But the UK cities where infrastructure is most talked about aren’t the obvious ones.
ING’s first Infrastructure Index ranks UK cities by how much infrastructure is talked about in conversations about each place.
Where infrastructure dominates the conversation
ING’s first Infrastructure Index ranks UK cities by how much infrastructure is talked about in conversations about each place. London leads, as expected. The rest of the top 10, though, is dominated by medium-sized cities that punch above their weight. Only two other entries – Cardiff and Glasgow – are ‘Core Cities’*.
*An alliance of 12 of the UK’s most economically important cities outside of London.
Looking at the whole Infrastructure Index of 45 cities, the data tells us some other interesting stories too.
For example, despite the fact that the South West has 76 projects listed in the government’s infrastructure pipeline (putting it third among English regions), none of its cities feature in the top 10 in ING’s Infrastructure Index, and only one of its cities ranks in the top 20. Given the emphasis that the government is putting on building infrastructure as a means to drive economic growth, regions with the lion’s share of projects have a clear opportunity to be more proactive in communicating progress and benefits.
Transport tops the list, fuelled by conversations about trams and rail.
What people talk about
Looking at what people are actually talking about when discussing infrastructure, transport tops the list, fuelled by conversations about trams and rail. Here, perhaps, we do see a link with the government’s infrastructure push. In the spring spending review, trams and light rail were the major winners.
Despite its importance, energy gets only around half as many mentions as transport. Nuclear power leads the conversation, making up 42% of all city-related energy mentions – well ahead of solar (32%), wind (11%), energy storage (10%) and the National Grid (5%).
Ports are another strong theme. Their online visibility reflects both the UK’s maritime and industrial heritage and the government’s freeports agenda. Nine of the top 10 cities in the Index are ports, showing how central infrastructure is to their civic identity and economic story.
Conversations about connectivity and 5G are also frequent, perhaps reflecting concern over the UK’s lag in 5G connectivity compared with global peers. But the data centres that power our digital world are barely talked about at all. While they have been a hot topic in the built world community in 2025, those conversations haven’t yet reached the wider public sphere – suggesting scope to translate need and development into public understanding. Among all city conversations about infrastructure in our sample, data centres make up just 1%.
Opportunities to lead the conversation
Taken together, ING’s Infrastructure Index illustrates not only how much infrastructure matters to people and businesses, but points to opportunities to engage with and influence the conversation around aspects of infrastructure that could be better understood and more widely appreciated.
When we compare where cities rank for the total number of infrastructure conversations with their rank for the total number of conversations about each city, it’s possible to see straightaway where people talk about infrastructure more – and less – than those areas’ wider profile might suggest.
Punching above their weight
Many of the cities in the Infrastructure Index top 10 are there precisely because those cities ‘over-index’ on conversations about infrastructure compared with their cut-through in online conversations more generally.
Thirteen of the 45 cities in the index are more talked about for infrastructure than would be expected based on their overall visibility.
Thirteen of the 45 cities in the index are more talked about for infrastructure than would be expected based on their overall visibility while 14 are talked about less for infrastructure than their overall profile would suggest. Another 18 rank roughly the same in both the Infrastructure Index and the overall Most Talked About Cities index.
The findings highlight how infrastructure can shape visibility and how some cities – and the businesses behind them – are turning delivery into reputation. For those working in infrastructure, the opportunity is clear: by leading the conversation, you lead perception.
To find out more about ING’s work in infrastructure, sign up here:
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How ING compiled its Infrastructure Index
ING’s Infrastructure Index measures the percentage of all conversations about a particular city that are about infrastructure and ranks them from highest to lowest.
These percentages were calculated using ING’s existing UK’s Most Talked About Cities data, and data we compiled on the total number of conversations about infrastructure in each of these cities.
To read more information on the methodology we used to measure and compare conversations click the button here:
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