At Buro Happold, we are redefining what great cities look like—creating places that are sustainable, inclusive, and resilient. We are now seeking an Strategic Planning Consultant to join our Global Urban Strategies team, playing a key leadership role in shaping city-scale solutions across the UK and internationally.
The role will be based from our London office with hybrid working.
We are looking for a person passionate about solving the challenges facing cities who has specialist urban and strategic planning skills to join our London based team.
You will have an opportunity to play a role in shaping and delivering projects combining our data analytics and urban modelling with our core strategic advisory, planning, economics, infrastructure and environment capabilities.
You should have 2+ years post qualification experience. We are looking for a talented urban planner who is a team player and strong project collaborator.
Required skills
- Demonstrate an understanding of urban development challenges and the value of providing integrated urban development and strategic planning solutions.
- Excellent problem solver able to interpret and understand the implications of analytical outputs
- Awareness and understanding of what it takes to deliver effective and viable client outcomes in a commercial working environment.
- Ability to liaise with internal and external clients to promote urban and regional development solutions and deliver high quality input into their projects.
- Advanced Excel and PowerPoint; comfortable working with quantitative datasets and building clear data-driven narratives
- Demonstrate an ability to prepare high-quality reports of a technical nature.
Specialist technical and sector expertise in one or more of the following areas:
- Strategic advisory for urban plans, programmes and projects
- Preparation of regional and city scale planning frameworks
- Development planning and masterplanning of large-scale mixed-use developments
- Data analytics and geo-spatial analysis
- Understanding of how statutory plan-making systems work: policy hierarchies, evidence requirements and approval processes and the ability to transfer that thinking into unfamiliar national and regional planning contexts.
- An awareness of the factors that determine whether plans and projects are deliverable, land ownership and assembly, phasing, infrastructure funding, and governance and delivery arrangements and a willingness to develop this understanding.
- Preparation of projects and programmes to support urban development including infrastructure planning and business case for economic, social and green infrastructure programmes and projects.
- Demonstrate strong cultural and institutional awareness, recognising how governance structures, land tenure and delivery mechanisms differ between geographies and shape what is deliverable.
- Competent in GIS (QGIS or ArcGIS) for spatial analysis and the production of publication-quality mapping;
Desirable Skills
- Familiarity with the UK plan-making system, including the NPPF, Local Plans and the emerging spatial development strategy regime for strategic authorities.
- Involvement in delivering integrated urban development, strategic spatial planning projects.
- Experience in urban resilience, climate change mitigation and adaptation, strategic environmental management and sustainable development strategies
- Involvement in delivering regional planning, masterplanning and urban design projects
- Working familiarity with CAD (2D and 3D) — in particular georeferencing and converting CAD masterplan, survey and land-parcel drawings for use in GIS
- Experience using Adobe Illustrator and InDesign, or similar graphics software
- Foreign language skills
- Experience of planning practice in more than one country, or of adapting methodologies developed in one regulatory context for use in another
- Willingness to travel for client meetings and workshops.
Qualifications
- Essential - Degree in a field allied to strategic urban planning such as geography, town planning, social science, geographic information science, environmental science, or architecture.
- Desirable - Masters degree in urban planning, spatial planning, urban design, or similar
- Desirable – RTPI chartered or with a clear route to Licentiate/Chartered membership; equivalent international body considered.
Role & Responsibilities
- Developing tailored consulting technical solutions; delivering an approach that adapts to our clients understanding, experience and needs.
- Undertaking pieces of planning and urban development research to feed into projects.
- Preparation of technical reports and client presentations.
- Engaging with Buro Happold colleagues from other technical disciplines and / or external collaborators to provide integrated reports and solutions for our clients.
- Coordinating inputs from other disciplines into integrated deliverables and maintaining the quality, traceability and internal consistency of project outputs, including comment tracking and client response
- Contributing towards innovation, technical capability and skills development initiatives and programmes.
- Support senior members of the team in preparation of proposals, fee estimates and bid material
- You may be required to work on projects either the UK or overseas as the need requires.
- The post holder must at all times carry out their duties with due regard to the BuroHappold Equality & Diversity Policy.
- You are required to set a personal example in all aspects of Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S).
- You are responsible for encouraging and maintaining high standards of OH&S in all areas under your control; meeting or exceeding targets and reporting on OH&S Key Performance Indicators. You will ensure compliance with the Company’s health and safety policy, relevant legislation and guidance in these areas.
- You are required to fulfil the duties appropriate to your grade as detailed in the Roles & Responsibilities section of the Company’s Health & Safety Management System
Apply today and be where exceptional is everywhere.
A place for everyone
Buro Happold values an individual's flexible approaches to working patterns as an important part of how you work and achieve balance. We welcome applications from those who are seeking flexibility in their careers.
Our exceptional portfolio of projects is the result of the diversity of thought, identities, backgrounds, and experiences that shape us. Appreciating each other’s differences is key, we want employees to feel they don’t have to mask elements of their identity to thrive.
We are working to change the lack of representation of marginalised groups in the built environment. We are particularly keen to hear from anyone who feels they are underrepresented in the industry. We have much to learn from one another. Embracing differences allows us to develop the most innovative and elegant solutions.
Please let us know if there are any adjustments we could make to the application process to make it easier and more comfortable for you. Contact recruitment@burohappold.com so we can work with you to support you throughout your application.
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