Prepare for a professional career as a planning practitioner
As we adapt to global changes that impact our cities including climate change, deepening inequality, concerns for community health and safety, and the emergence of global city-regions, planning has never been more critical.
The Master of Urban Planning is a professional degree that focuses on Australian and international policy and planning pertaining to human settlements and how we cope with these challenging population and environmental issues.
The Master of Urban Planning is accredited by the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) and undergoes a regular review process to ensure the quality and relevance of the program.
Completing an accredited degree means you enter the workforce with a stamp of quality on your CV. In a competitive market, an accredited degree is an assurance of quality to employers and an advantage for you. For us, it means we continually strive to improve the quality of the degree in order to retain accreditation. So, you know you are getting the most up-to-date and innovative educational experience.
In the Master of Urban Planning, you will examine the interaction between people, the places they live and the policies that help shape economically viable, socially just, environmentally sustainable, safe and healthy communities. You will explore:
The program allows you to develop expertise in an area of specialisation in preparation for a focussed career. As well as core courses, electives and a research thesis, you will complete four courses in one of the following areas:
You will develop critical thinking skills and the ability to respond creatively to urban planning issues. You will examine cities in an international comparative context, gaining knowledge you can apply in your career, wherever you end up.
The MUP will:
Many Master of Urban Planning graduates enter the public sector and work in government departments and agencies, or for local councils and regions.
The private sector and civil society, within Australia and internationally, offers an increasing range of employment opportunities, including urban planning and design, environmental and transport planning consultancies, property development companies, and housing and community advocacy. There are also opportunities in tertiary education and research.
Urban planners work with teams of related professionals such as architects, landscape architects, engineers, environmental scientists, economists, property valuers, real estate developers, lawyers and sociologists.
Our Urban Planning MSc provides a core introduction to planning issues, professional and theoretical debates and their application to live cases and places.
Urban Planning is the understanding of the place making processes that underpins places, society and the environment. It is also interdisciplinary, with professionals having an understanding across a range of topics. You'll gain an understanding of the fundamentals required for a successful career in planning or the wider built environment professions.
The Urban Planning MSc is seeking accreditation from the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI). The Development pathway is also seeking accreditation from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and will offer a RICS-accredited route to gain Chartered Surveyors status.
The course is suitable:
The course has five specialist pathways to suit your individual needs, background and career aspirations.
Accreditation:
This course is fully accredited by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI). The RTPI (a professional body for planners) is the UK's leading planning body for spatial, sustainable and inclusive planning. It is the largest planning institute in Europe with over 23,000 members
The Development pathway is also seeking accreditation from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and will offer a RICS-accredited route to gain Chartered Surveyors status. You can apply for RICS student membership through the RICS website.
Develop an innovative approach to planning grounded in theory and lively academic debate, and focused on the knowledge, skills and competencies required for employment in the area.
You base your studies on real life issues and case studies. This allows you to develop the range of skills and competencies to enter into a planning career. The course also allows you to develop your own interests and specialist areas of study. The course provides you with key knowledge and skills for a planning or planning-related career.
It covers topics and issues such as
The course also enables you to develop key skills for your future career. These are gained through the modules and the assessment approach and include
The course has been running for over 25 years attracting students from a range of backgrounds including
This course is accredited by the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Core modules
Optional modules
Choose one option module from
Assessment
Coursework and professional practice focused assignments.
You can find opportunities in both private consultancy and public sector planning in planning and related careers including strategic planning and policy development • development implementation and management • environmental protection •infrastructure planning, housing development • regeneration • economic development • heritage and the historic environment • health • transport and accessibility planning.
Planners are also employed across a range of public and private sector bodies in wider roles, for example in wider policy development and in campaign bodies and pressure groups.
As an internationally recognised qualification the course also opens up wider career opportunities in the global job market.
The MSc Regional and Urban Planning Studies is a unique planning programme as it is based on the economics, geography and the politics of land-use planning, drawing on LSE’s strength in interdisciplinary teaching.
The programme has a long tradition in training both people seeking careers in urban and regional planning policy and mid-career professionals. It attracts students from all over the world including North and South America, Asia and Europe.
The MSc aims to provide a common understanding of the various influences affecting the planning process, and to teach a set of research skills that will help planners in practice. These skills include urban and regional economic analysis, the evaluation of environmental and regional policies and the study of institutional and political factors that impact city and regional development.
We provide strong professional linkages through our very active alumni network and links to the Association of European Planning Schools. This programme benefits from a partnership agreement with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), thus conferring professional recognition upon graduation.
Our graduates typically go on to careers in planning consultancies, local and regional government, real estate and property development, and community advocacy organisations.
Further information on graduate destinations for this programme
This MA course will give you the knowledge, understanding and skills necessary to practise professionally as a spatial planner. It is designed to meet the growing employer needs for staff who can investigate changes in the natural and built environments, manage the challenges of climate change through sustainable development, and debate and critically reflect upon the knowledge and values underpinning current approaches to land use development. Completion of the MA course is the first step to become a full member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI).
The course will support your personal and professional development. You will be able to work in the interdisciplinary and cross-sector environment of urban and regional development, in a variety of private, public and community contexts, and apply your knowledge to practise in specialist areas of planning. The course builds on the University's experience of delivering postgraduate courses in town planning for more than 60 years.
The course explores the current context and content of spatial planning. It does so from a UK and European perspective, and also investigates underlying theoretical debates.
If you want to gain a greater understanding of spatial planning, but do not want to study for a full Masters course, we also offer an Urban and Regional Planning Postgraduate Diploma and an Urban and Regional Planning Postgraduate Certificate. Scroll to the bottom of this page to find out more about these courses.
For the award of the MA students need to pass modules totalling 180 credits. MA students take all core modules and choose one specialist option module.
The following modules are indicative of what you will study on this course.
Core modules
Optional modules
On successful completion of the MA course students can become licentiates of the RTPI. After two years' experience in practice, they may make a submission for their Assessment of Professional Competence and, if successful, are then entitled to full RTPI membership.
Visiting lectures are given by a wide range of external practitioners. The teaching team has extensive links with planning institutions including the RTPI and the Town and Country Planning Association. The course includes part-time students working in planning-related positions in private and public sectors.
Most of the students on the course are already in planning or planning-related posts. Full-time students graduating from the course as qualified planners will normally be offered planning positions in the public or private sector on graduation.
Examples of companies that have recruited our graduates include:
This new MSc brings a cross-disciplinary focus to transport and urban planning which is unique, aiming to foster “smart solutions” to the current critical challenges of transitioning to sustainable travel behaviours and sustainable cities in the UK and internationally. The programme draws on the latest thinking and debates in transport, urban planning and mega infrastructure project development.
The aim of the MSc is to enable students to work effectively as transport and planning practitioners, moving beyond the ‘disciplinary silos’ usually found in academia and practice. A key feature of the MSc is its integrative design across disciplines, developing a range of different theories and perspectives, with modules linked by common principles.
Students undertake modules to the value of 180 credits.
The programme consists of six core modules (90 credits), two optional modules (30 credits) and a dissertation/report (60 credits).
A Postgraduate Diploma (120 credits, full-time nine months) is offered.
Core modules
Optional modules
Choose two from a list which may include the following:
Dissertation/report
All students undertake an independent research project which culminates in a dissertation in transport and city planning of 10,000 words.
Teaching and learning
The programme is delivered through a combination of lectures, seminars, project work, and site visits. Assessment is through examinations, essays, group/individual projects and presentation, and a dissertation.
Further information on modules and degree structure is available on the department website: Transport and City Planning MSc
The programme is attractive to candidates who wish to work across disciplines, and at the strategic policy development levels, with urban planning, geography, transport planning or engineering graduates, or wider specialists, who see their future work in transport planning as part of the design of sustainable cities. Graduate students from The Bartlett School of Planning have been very successful in gaining subsequent employment. At present there is a growing demand for our postgraduates from a wide range of both private and public employers, within the transport planning or urban planning professions, or the nexus of strategy development and implementation.
Employability
This programme will equip students with the skills needed to work effectively as transport and planning practitioners in urban contexts in the public or third sector, for example in consultancy, central government, Transport for London (TfL), Greater London Authority (GLA), metropolitan authorities, local authorities, international investment banks, quangos and lobby groups. Potential employers also include international consultancies; we have close links and have worked with many of these companies such as Halcrow, CH2M and Arup.
The UCL Bartlett is the UK's largest multidisciplinary Faculty of the Built Environment, bringing together scientific and professional specialisms required to research, understand, design, construct and operate the buildings and urban environments of the future.
There is a strong focus on transport and city planning in research activities at the UCL Bartlett. Current activities include: VIBAT (Visioning and Backcasting for Transport), SINTROPHER (innovative public transport options in peripheral regions), SYNAPTIC (the seamless travel journey), the OMEGA centre (the planning and delivery of major infrastructure projects) and we work with various project sponsors such as Transport for London, the Asian Development Bank and European Investment Bank.
The MSc has Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) accreditation as a ‘specialist’ four-year programme. Candidates can also apply to become members of the Transport Planning Society (TPS), Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT), or related organisations, on subscription.
This Master's programme "Architecture: Urban Projects, Urban Cultures" explores architecture from a research-by-design and design-by-research perspective. Students are educated and trained in a multicultural and international context. The programme combines an academic approach with a creative-experimental approach. It is characterised by a fully-integrated design methodology, providing students with solid skills in the contemporary discipline of architectural design and research.
The Master of Architecture programme is organised at both of the faculty's campuses in Brussels and Ghent, though each campus offers a different orientation:
This is an initial Master's programme and can be followed on a full-time or part-time basis. The programme consists out of a minimum of four semesters.
The Faculty of Architecture takes its international dimension as the basis for its own quality assessment. It positions itself squarely within the international field of qualitative academic education. The faculty's international activities are extensive and diversified: student mobility and staff exchange on a European and intercontinental level, internationally oriented programmes for incoming students, international workshops and competitions, international research projects, international internships, development cooperation, etc.
The faculty continues to build on its tradition of academic integration of teaching and research to maintain and enhance its standard of quality and international standing.
The faculty works hard to consolidate and enrich its network of cooperative associations with professionals and universities all over the world and strives to leverage this international network for students' benefit. Its international dimension is a strong catalyst for creativity and an added value to students' future professional career.
"The intended academic quality, is the core of the program (architecture, urban planning), i.e. academically based 'professionalism'.
The broadening of the profile focuses on basic disciplines (architecture and urban planning), however without compromising the appropriate focus on the professional profile of the architect (in multiple forms).
In the profile of master, one should obtain extreme concentration and specificity (however, no specialisation).
On the one hand, the master focuses on the content and area-specific level of the bachelor phase, and on the other hand on the acquirement of access to the professional or doctoral field (advanced masters, PhD,...).
The core competences of the master are:
The master program should guarantee the acquirement of scientific depth. The offered frontier disciplines focus on the current state of research and development within the competence field. The technical qualification to be acquired, focuses on the high quality problem solving of complex tasks.
In the field of Architecture and Urban Design, a global awareness is growing, questioning established development and settlement patterns regarding future societal needs and ensuing planning strategies and architectural interventions.
The current fast-forward global development increasingly strains the Western and European model, inducing a whole range of urban planning and architectural challenges to update the academic and professional practice.
Facing the consequences of a changing society and a post-industrial and knowledge-based economy, Western developments stand in stark contrast with rapidly developing economies and a still expanding population worldwide. Instigating important and unchartered societal shifts, our conception of urbanity and the city is fundamentally affected.
Traditional urban planning methods and architectural strategies might not offer the necessary tools to recognize and address these future challenges and therefore need to be reconsidered.
Within these changing context and transition processes, the Urban Projects, Urban Cultures Programme seeks to research, develop and teach alternative architectural and urban design tools, not so much aimed at reinventing urban landscapes, but as it were to edit the given condition from within.
A critical and coherent attitude towards recent urban phenomena is considered the base for research and design at different levels.
Apart from the theoretical courses, the program includes 3 design studios (during one semester) and 1 final master dissertation studio (during one year). Each semester, there is a focus on a specific attitude, related to the main theme of the programme. All studios are organised through a pool of studio groups (Academic Design Offices and Design Studios) where the teaching staff provides a series of specific themes, methods and intervention areas for the students to develop an architectural project:
Themes sem 1
Themes sem 2 (specific focus on the city of Brussels)
Themes sem 3
Themes sem 4
Graduates are trained to lead multidisciplinary teams of engineers, interior architects, landscape architects and artists. In addition to working as independent (self-employed) architects, our graduates also work as professionals in government agencies and international design firms. Some graduates go on to roles as researchers serving local or international governance bodies, NGO's or other institutes.
Edinburgh College of Art: Postgrad study in Art, Design, Architecture, Music, History of Art
Established provider of online distance learning Master’s courses in Environmental Science and Geography
USF’s School of Education links instruction, research, and service to give students the tools to deal with the challenges and needs of diverse classrooms
