1. The advice we give to UK planners wishing to work abroad applies equally to qualified planners coming to Britain from overseas: there is no substitute for being in the country when job-hunting. Quite apart from the need to respond rapidly when a vacancy occurs, which is hard to do if you are a long distance away, jobs are never offered without a face-to-face interview, so the final stages of your search for work will have to take place here.

2. We suggest that planners take any opportunity they can, including holidays, family visits, conferences or short study tours, to visit Britain to research the possibilities. There may be visa and work permit complications which mean that it is easier to come first as a tourist to research the employment market.

3. We do not advise on immigration and work permits, as individual planners’ circumstances vary so widely. The place to start researching this topic is the Immigration and Nationality Directorate of the Home Office (Interior Ministry), and its Visas and Work Permits divisions. All this is explained on a special Home Office website for people interested in working here: www.workingintheuk.gov.uk.

4. It may be expensive to organise a short visit, and time-consuming to plan a long one, so some of the basic research will have to be done while still at home.

5. Surfing the Internet for UK planning consultancies (using expressions such as “town and country planning” or “land-use planning” to narrow down the search if necessary) should lead you to the names of British consultancy companies and university departments. On the website www.rtpiconsultants.co.uk you will find details of planning consultancies, too. They are listed by town or city, by county and by speciality.

6. To find names and addresses of local authorities (councils) in an area which interests you, go to the UK Open Government website www.open.gov.uk/index/t_local_government.htm for a complete alphabetical listing with links. Note that the names of UK local authorities do not always correspond to the familiar names of towns and cities, so you may have to search creatively; for example, “London” consists of the City of London, the City of Westminster, and 31 other Boroughs from Barking & Dagenham to Wandsworth. Similarly, Greater Manchester covers ten metropolitan authorities including the cities of Manchester and Salford and the Boroughs of Tameside, Oldham, Bury etc (see the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities website at www.agma.gov.uk). The Planning Directory (http://www.theplanningdirectory.co.uk/) has regional listings which make this clear.

7. Contact details for University departments are also given in the Education section of this website.  Many offer short courses as well as full-length undergraduate and/or graduate courses.

8. Planning vacancies are advertised every week in Planning, the magazine published in association with the RTPI. An airmail subscription to Planning normally costs 159 pounds sterling per year: write to Planning Subscriptions Department, PO Box 219, Woking, GU21 1ZW. International associates of the RTPI receive the journal airmail as part of their subscription which is currently less than half the journal airmail subscription price. Members of most overseas planning institutes are entitled to apply for international associate status while they are overseas. Further details are available from the Education and Life-long Learning department of the RTPI at the London address on page 1, and on the RTPI website, or email applications@rtpi.org.uk.

9. The national broadsheet newspapers (The Guardian, The Independent, The Times and Daily Telegraph) print advertisements for public-sector appointments one day a week – for example, the Society supplement to The Guardian comes out on Wednesdays. To read the job vacancies on line, go to www.jobs.guardian.co.uk.

10. Planning Resource from the publishers of Planning magazine is an on-line planning newsletter carrying the same job advertisements as the magazine.

11. This website gives answers to Frequently Asked Questions about membership, publishes comments on new and proposed government legislation and carries detailed regular reports on UK planning policy and practice, as well as detailed information on specific topics such as sustainable development.

12. The planning area of the website for the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) carries interesting and useful information on UK planning, including full texts of much important legislation - navigate to Planning for briefings, news and practical guidance. The Planning Portal also gives you rapid access to news, documents, detailed guidance and even a glossary of planning terminology from Accessibility to Zone of Visual Influence.

13. The Handy Guide to Planning, produced by the Urban Forum with assistance from Planning Aid, is primarily aimed at community or voluntary organisations and would be of interest to anyone wanting a user-friendly guide to English planning. You can download an electronic version. 

14. PlanningMatters is an on-line training resource developed by RTPI to help planners carry out their jobs effectively and continue their professional development. It consists of downloadable training modules on hundreds of topics and a way of keeping track of personal study. You can try out a sample module free of charge and then there are various ways of opening an account to pay for further downloads.

15. A number of London-based recruitment agencies can assist in locating jobs in local authorities, property development companies and other employers of planners. The classified advertising pages in Planning magazine carry advertisements for these agencies and consultants. They are particularly good for finding work in London, where there is often a shortage of mid-career planners because of the high cost of family housing. Employment agencies in the UK do not charge the job seeker for their services.

Author:

Judith Eversley

Publisher:

The Royal Town Planning Institute

Date:

16-Sep-07

Categories:

 

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