Do you remember the childhood joy of creating your own town from Lego or cereal boxes and empty loo rolls? Perhaps you’re more the Minecraft generation?
Alas, for most of us, the happiness that comes from creating our own worlds must ultimately be left behind.
Town planners (also known as just plain ‘planners’), however, are much luckier: they’re the grown-ups who get to shape our towns and cities.
It’s not just about erecting a village store here and a fire station there with carefree abandon. In carrying out the job, a town planner has to take into account the views and recommendations of a host of interested parties.
They have to balance the demands placed on land by housing, transport, business and leisure with the needs and opinions of the community.
So as well as expertise of their own, a good planner requires first class communication skills to deal with all who have an interest in the development of a town.
The day-to-day role involves using surveying techniques and computer-aided design (CAD) to map out plans for land use.
Duties will vary depending on whether you work in conservation or transport or sustainability. Generally though, you’ll be taking planning decisions, giving advice to business and land developers regarding regulations and redesigning urban spaces, to name but a few.
To get started as a town planner you need a degree or postgraduate qualification accredited by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI).
You can either get onto an accredited degree course before starting your career or take a work-based route where you could qualify as a planner whilst working in a related job such as a planning technician.
Starting out you will earn around £18,000 but this can rise to around £35,000 for an experienced town planner. For those with substantial experience salaries can rise as high as £80,000.
While work will be based in a planning office, there will be site visits, so be prepared to don your wellies and waterproofs to get down into the trenches and have your hard hat and boots to clamber up scaffolding.
Best set the timer to record Strictly – while working hours will generally be nine until five, you’ll be expected to attend public meetings and other events from time to time, which can be during evening hours and weekends.
If all this sounds right up your street, check out the property vacancies with s1jobs for an opening in the planning department.
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