What Does the Future of Planning Look Like? Engaging the Next Generation and Beyond

I have seen firsthand whether teaching at secondary schools or speaking directly with young people at consultations across London and Birmingham, that youth care deeply about their local areas. Yet, they have too often been locked out of the vital conversations that shape their own futures. My doctoral project, focused on understanding the barriers to teenagers to engage in planning, indicated that most young people have not previously participated in urban planning but would strongly like to do so. They want to be involved because they are passionate about their communities, desire to see their input leads to real, tangible changes in their hometowns, and recognise that urban planning directly affects their future.

If we are to secure the future of our profession, we need to engage young people in planning more generally, promoting it as an accessible career path, while also critically thinking about how we attract mid-career changers. If we do not actively invite people to shape their own environments, the systemic disconnect in our industry will only widen.

Today, we face significant strains in building our pipeline of talent. Recent data from the State of the Profession 2025 suggests that around 20% of respondents intend to leave the planning profession in the coming three years. Planning is not a school subject, so pupils and their teachers are rarely aware of it, creating a severe ‘awareness gap.’ Students often fail to connect the dots between their passion for climate activism and the profession of planning. Furthermore, local planning authorities are often stuck in firefighting mode due to long-term funding cuts, while the planning system itself is frequently viewed by outsiders as technical, complex, and adversarial. Just because it is hard to pin down young people in a church hall at five o'clock does not mean they are not interested in their area.

The forces shaping our future - climate change, digital transformation, and the desperate need for diversity - require a workforce that understands these complexities. To build this workforce, we must look beyond traditional educational routes. Mid-career switchers bring invaluable life experience and new perspectives that are essential for tackling the multifaceted challenges modern planners face. We cannot afford to ignore them in our outreach.

What Must Change?

We need to be critical of our current outreach methods and leave tokenistic engagement behind. However, getting into schools to promote planning is not always straightforward – contacts are hard to establish, and every other profession is also trying to do the exact same thing. Recognising this, we are now working on a strategy to refine and develop our approach to careers promotion. We have to stop talking to ourselves and start engaging pragmatically with the communities we serve.

What must never be lost is our core ethical drive to make meaningful places and mediate space for everyone. Whether someone enters the profession at 18, 21 or 40, that foundational purpose of building equitable, inclusive environments that actually serve local communities must remain the soul of planning.

So, what are the professional institutions doing to fix the pipeline?

At the RTPI, we are actively working to bridge the skills gap and reach our target of 30,000 members by 2030. Through our Empower 2030 Strategic Plan, we are striving to ensure the profession accurately reflects the diverse communities it serves. We are looking critically at our own structures. Education for Everyone is our ongoing review of the barriers to entry to Planning. Parts 1 and 2 focused heavily on initial planning education, while Part 3 focuses on our Assessment of Professional Competence. We also proudly support the RTPI Trust Bursary Award and champion government-funded apprenticeships as a "Skills for Life" pathway.

BE Inclusive is a project involving the RTPI and other built environment institutions. One crucial aspect of that project is to improve the pipeline into the professions, including through a practical internship pilot programme. To reach younger children aged 7 to 11, we use the "Agent Plan-It" comic series and gamified toolkits like "Lego Planning" and the "Clothesline Timeline" to make urban evolution tangible. I have also found that tools and games, like the Climania board game I co-developed, are incredibly effective in testing out ideas with communities.

The next generation needs visibility and access. To achieve this, the RTPI has an active Ambassadors programme, which involves volunteer members going into schools to promote planning as a career. Over the last year or so, we have completely updated our materials, had them translated into Welsh, and are mid-way through a pilot partnership with the organisation Education and Employers on their Inspiring the Future platform.

We are not just working locally - we are in active discussions with governments across the nations of the UK and Ireland in relation to their careers activity. This includes MHCLG’s Planning Careers Hub, the Scottish National Planning Skills Commitment Plan, and the Irish Ministerial Action Plan on Planning Resources. We recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UN Habitat to promote planning skills across the world; work I am deeply familiar with having co-established the Commonwealth Youth for Sustainable Urbanisation.

What does the planning professions look like in 2050? 

It looks like a truly multidisciplinary approach where the systemic issue of working in disconnected silos across the construction industry is outdated. It looks like young professionals being given a genuine seat at the table. Our Chief Planners of Tomorrow scheme is a fantastic example of this vision in action today, offering RTPI Young Planners the chance to work-shadow Chief Planning Officers to gain high-level leadership insights. A successful future also means robust Young Planners’ Networks continuing to organise study tours, CPD sessions, and conferences to support one another locally and globally.

I call on every professional to take responsibility. Under the leadership of RTPI President Lindsey Richards, the BALANCE (Build a Legacy and New Community Equality) initiative asked every RTPI member to devote at least two hours of their CPD each year to visiting schools and universities. Sign up for the Ambassadors programme or join the Inspiring the Future platform. We need to go to where the people are—in the schools, the community centres, and the streets—and proactively show them that planning is a career of immense value and positive impact. 

The question is not simply what will the future hold? It is what future are we willing to build — and for whom are we willing to build it? If we want a profession capable of meeting tomorrow's challenges, we must start pragmatically building pathways for the youth and career-changers of today.