The difficulty and cost of the installation of offshore wind turbine (OWT) increases with the rapid development of the scale of the global offshore wind industry, the continuous enlargement of the capacity of the wind turbine and the development of wind farms towards deep sea. The installation methods suitable for large wind turbines (10 MW and above) in deeper waters and harsh sea conditions shall be thoroughly studied and refined to address this situation. Therefore, this article introduces and discusses the main installation methods of OWTs and the characteristics of OWT installation vessels, as well as their future development needs. On this basis, the installation difficulties of current OWTs are summarized. The research progresses in the numerical simulation of the OWT installation are further reviewed. The scheme of combining numerical simulation with the planning and on-site construction stages of wind turbine installation is discussed in detail to ensure safe construction and improve installation efficiency.