The discipline of Planning is located in the School of Natural and Built Environment, David Keir Building on Stranmillis Road. Planning is a fascinating subject to study at university. Planning is about changing the places within which we live. How we can transform and improve our cities, towns, villages, neighbourhoods, and communities. So, it affects our everyday lives and is an extremely exciting discipline to study at university. A Planning degree provides you with the knowledge and skills to be able to make decisions that shape the processes of growth and development. We currently face many major challenges - for example, attracting investment, creating jobs, protecting the environment, energy policy, housing supply, transport links, providing local amenities, protecting health and wellbeing - and Planning affects how these things happen. Therefore, as future planners you will have a very important role to play in shaping the future. Planning is a broad subject matter and planners perform many different roles relating to the natural, physical, economic, social, and cultural environments that we live in. Given this, Planning offers a wide spectrum of employment opportunities. Studying Planning will equip you with the knowledge to understand how cities, towns, villages, communities, and neighbourhoods function and operate, and then have the skills to make decisions that shape how they grow and prosper.

This MPlan is a unique degree, offering a complete four-year pathway in professional planning education, with a specialisation in European Planning. Innovative features include an emphasis on understanding European-wide planning issues and overseas study at a European university, which will include opportunities for work placement. This provides unique insights into the diversity of planning cultures and challenges across the continent, allowing graduates to grasp a wide range of employment opportunities in the UK, Europe and beyond.

MPlan students will go on work placement during the end of Stage 2 and will have the option of developing further work placement opportunities during Stage 4. This degree builds on the University‘s established reputation for high-quality planning education. On past experience of the BSc in Planning, Environment and Development, and the MPlan’s special features, we anticipate that graduates will find employment in areas such as:

• Planning authorities and municipalities
• Private planning practice/property development
  Design consultants
• Housing authorities and agencies, such as housing associations
• Health trusts
• Policy advisers in planning, urban regeneration and the environment, particularly at the level of the EU
• Conservation and environmental NGOs
• Teaching (particularly geography)
• Public bodies, such as advisory bodies on the environment, heritage, transport and heritage
• Various graduate programmes (including banking and management)
• Further study (PhD) and research positions

We regularly consult with employers, links which are further enhanced through formal partnership meetings with the bodies that accredit our courses (RICS and RTPI), having a practising planner as one of our External Examiners and involving a wide range of potential employers in student projects and regular careers events.