Thinking about the future of our future planners

RTPI Scotland's State of the Profession report published at the end of 2025 shows that planning teams in Scotland's local authorities have numerous unfilled vacancies, and that many experienced planners will be retiring from the profession in the next few years. 

The great news is that over the last 3 years the Scottish Government (SG) has funded almost 70 graduates to study planning and join the planning profession. Some of the support has gone to bursaries and some to the SG's own Future Planner programme giving graduates 2 years of work experience within the civil service alongside part-time post-graduate studies.

That's a good platform for the future, but we need to keep up that support in the longer-term to ensure we have enough planners to support both the public and private sectors. The other reason for keeping up the support is to recruit a diverse range of planners - targeting support to groups under-represented in the profession.

So, what are we imagining for the next parliamentary term?

First, what if we had funding guaranteed across the parliament supporting a stream of new planners over 5 years - rather than an annual budget waiting game. It would be better for Universities and better for the year on year promotion of the bursaries to graduates and careers advisers. The upside for the Government would be a bigger headline number of new planners being supported - not just 10 or 20 a year, but a guarantee of a hundred plus planners over 5 years. It would be a hugely symbolic statement of support for planning in Scotland too. 

Second, what if the scheme included a bridge into local authority employment? And what if that was achieved through a Local Government Future Planners programme operating along the same lines as the Scottish Government scheme? In essence, such a programme would mean a cohort of students with an opportunity to take up fixed-term graduate contracts in local authorities whilst studying part-time. If we were really ambitious, then we could run a Future Planner graduate recruitment drive every year - alternating those places between local government and the Scottish Government.

The final what if is about finding a way to route planning graduates into public sector jobs. In our ideal world, there would be a coordinated local government recruitment campaign each year publicised in the Autumn and open for applications well before the end of exams. That would benefit applicants by allowing them to apply once for multiple roles, and it would maximise the visibility of public sector planning roles during annual careers cycles. Let's get our future planners into the jobs where they are most needed with a long-term commitment and strategy over the next parliamentary term.

What do you think the future for our future planners should look like? Get in touch and let us know - scotland@rtpi.org.uk.