Career profile: town planner

Town planners help decide the ways spaces in towns and cities should be used and built, based on what works for the land and for the people living there.

This blog is based on a profile in Unifrog's Careers library, a tool where students can learn about hundreds of careers, and how they fit into the world of work. The above video is sponsored by the Worshipful Company of Chartered Surveyors. We chatted to Harry, Town Planning Consultant at Newmark, about his role.

What you'll do

Your day-to-day tasks can include:

• creating plans and making recommendations using surveying techniques, geographical information systems (GIS), and computer-aided design (CAD) software
• assessing the effectiveness of new transport systems like rail links or roads
• planning for houses and renewable energy generation sites like wind farms
• redesigning urban spaces and developing parks, woodlands, and waterways to be sustainable
• conserving old buildings and archaeological sites
• developing local or national planning policies for government
• making decisions about planning applications
• advising the public, businesses and land developers on planning policies, rules and regulations
• making sure planning rules and regulations are carried out
• organising meetings to hear feedback from local people

Working hours and environment

You'll usually work 35 to 40 hours a week. You may also attend events like public meetings in the evenings.

Entry requirements

You'll need an undergraduate or a postgraduate degree in a subject like town planning, urban planning, or urban design. Or a related subject like architecture, environment and development, or engineering. 

You could study part-time for a qualification while working in a role like planning technician or support staff member.

Career path and progression

With experience, you could apply for chartered town planner status, and then become a planner or senior planner. With at least 10 years' experience you could become a senior manager or planning consultant. You could work as a self-employed consultant.

You could also move into environmental management, urban regeneration, recreation management and property development.

Skills

You'll need:

• communication skills: you'll have lots of different projects on the go, so you’ll need to keep your colleagues and line managers up to date. You’ll also be sending lots of emails and having lots of calls and meetings every day.
   
• networking: you’re encouraged to grow your personal networks, so that means meeting lots of new people and being introduced to consultants and other roles in big projects. You’ll build relationships with people in the council, and people in other companies that you can bounce ideas off of.
   
• planning / aiming high: you’ll work on projects that can take years to complete, so you need to keep an eye on deadlines and spot any issues before they arise and turn into much bigger problems.
   
• resilience / staying positive: you might need to attend community meetings and consultation events where there can be some passionate people with strong views. So you’ll need to be resilient, listen to their views, and understand what they’re saying to make sure their voices are heard.
   
• teamwork: you’ll speak to so many people on any given day – not just your clients and other consultants, but people in your own team about their projects and how you can support each other.

Labour market information (LMI)

Here’s some data on town planner jobs in the UK and USA as of 2025. On the actual Careers library profile there is lots more LMI.