Urban Planning
Options with a degree in Urban Planning
Urban planning graduates play a key role in managing and developing the places we live in to make them safer, more sustainable and healthier
These skills, along with other factors of career choice – what you like doing (your interests), what’s important to you (your values) and your personality type – will help you make informed career decisions. Remember that your career may be based on the skills you’ve gained over the course of your degree studies.
Some of the main career options with an Urban Planning degree are:
- Historic buildings inspector/conservation officer
- Housing manager/officer
- Local government officer
- Town planner
- Transport planner
- Urban designer
You can find out more about these on Prospects what can I do with my degree? as well as the wide variety of jobs where your skills and knowledge are applicable.
Useful resources to help with your careers research
The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) has some useful information on careers support.
icould website also has a full range of careers information interviews and case studies featuring numerous different roles which you can search through and view online. Some relevant case studies are listed below
To help you explore the wide range of career options open to you have a look at Prospects what can I do with my degree? and take the Prospects Career Planner Quiz.
Volunteering locally
If you are interested in gaining some voluntary experience locally you may find the following websites helpful
- Volunteer Scotland advertises a number of local and national volunteering vacancies
- Dundee Volunteer and Voluntary Action advertises a number of Dundee based volunteering vacancies
Looking to make the most of your volunteering? Why not sign up for the Dundee Plus Award which helps you reflect on and develop your employability skills. It even gives you evidence to add to your CV.
Internships and work experience
- University of Dundee JobShop
- ARUP have advertised planning internships over the last few years
- Savills Early Careers Work placement opportunities
- GoinGlobal – international internships and job options
- Tayplan – The Strategic Development Planning Authority for Dundee, Angus , Perth and North Fife
- Saltire – a world-class internship programme, which prepares students in their penultimate year of study by taking part in projects in Scotland and all over the world
- Forage – host of thousands of free virtual job simulations
- For some University of Dundee students, you may be eligible to take our 20 credit level 2 Internship Module.
Sometimes, making a speculative application may be the way to get that work placement or internship that you want. If you’d like to talk through how to approach a potential employer, feel free to contact the Careers Service.
Finding a graduate job
- Planning Resource for planning vacancies across the sector
- PlanningJobs.com doe planning vacancies across the sector
- Planning Portal
- myjobscotland for local authority vacancies
- Mott Macdonald recruit graduate planners
- ARUP recruit for graduate planners
- Savills Graduate Programme
- Pegasus Group recruit for graduate planners
- You might also want to contact employers direct by using the RTPI’s Online Directory of Planning Consultants, which contains the contact details for many UK and Ireland based consultancies. The contact details for UK local authorities is also a good place to narrow your search to a particular geographical location.
General
The following websites may be helpful to search the wider job market, where your transferable skills can be applied.
Graduate schemes
Many leading UK employers across all industries run graduate training programmes, to discover the benefits of these schemes and how you apply the links below will help: