This past month has brought a significant setback for our profession, and the all-important pipeline of future planners needed to keep the art of planning alive.
The Government announced a funding restriction on Level 7 (L7) Chartered Town Planner apprenticeships, limiting eligibility to individuals aged 16 to 21. While a pipeline of young talent is welcome, this policy risks doing real damage to an already struggling planning system.
The RTPI has heard from university partners across the country that nearly 100% of L7 apprentices are over the age of 21 at entry. The new age cap could make apprenticeship programmes unviable, reducing annual recruitment of 200 new planners.
This is not just a blow to the profession; it undermines the Government’s ambition to inject 300 additional planners into Local Planning Authorities (LPAs), and threatens its broader housing and economic growth agenda.
But the issue isn’t only about numbers. These apprenticeships offer a route into planning for mature, knowledgeable, and diverse individuals, those who may not have discovered the profession at 16, but who bring life experience, patience, and emotional intelligence to their roles. Cutting off this route risks narrowing the planning workforce at a time when breadth and depth of experience are sorely needed.
Since November 2024, we have actively engaged with the Department for Education and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, urging them to grant an exemption for the Chartered Town Planner L7 Apprenticeship. Before and after the official announcement, we wrote to the Secretary of State for Education to outline how significantly this age limit would affect the future of the profession.
Having met with officials from both departments recently, whilst communication lines remain open, with no skills strategy coming in the foreseeable future, it’s not clear to us how the Government is going to reach their 300 planners target anytime soon.
The backdrop to this decision makes it all the more concerning. Between 2013 and 2020, the public sector lost a quarter of its planning workforce. Those who remain are overworked, managing ambitious housing targets and constant policy reform with limited support.
This staffing crisis isn’t just recognised by RTPI. Unison, the UK’s largest union, has warned that planning officer shortages in councils could derail housing delivery and economic growth. Its research shows councils are “way short” of the staffing levels needed to process planning applications and deliver the homes Chancellor Rachel Reeves outlined last week.
The National Audit Office has also raised an alarm. Its recent report, Improving Local Areas Through Developer Funding, cited RTPI data and highlighted severe capacity issues in LPAs. Similarly, the Home Builders Federation’s Planning on Empty report found a shortfall of over 2,200 planners across England and Wales – or 7,500 if measured against the scale of the Government’s housing ambitions.
Planning Minister Matthew Pennycook MP has called resourcing “an issue that keeps him up at night.” And to the Government’s credit, it has pledged 300 new planners, committed to streamlining the delivery of housing and infrastructure, and will introduce an AI tool to speed up planning administration.
These are welcome initiatives. But none will succeed unless the resourcing crisis in LPAs is addressed head-on, and that includes protecting the apprenticeship routes that bring talent into the system.
We are committed to working with the Government to find a solution for those excluded by the new age limit. At the same time, we are calling on businesses to support the BCC Planning Skills Fund, which aims to raise £3 million to train and upskill planners nationwide.
If we are serious about solving the housing crisis, then we must be equally serious about investing in the people who will help deliver it.
