Urban Planning

A degree in Urban Planning offers a unique opportunity to help shape the world around us. Our cities and built environments face huge future challenges. Cities around the world are threatened by climate change, rising sea levels, population growth and economic change. We need to change how our cities are planned and developed to tackle these economic, social and environmental challenges.

Our Urban Planning course draws on our diverse expertise, providing you with the skills required to help you shape our future and solve the big issues our society faces. This course has been specifically developed with leading planning practitioners to equip you with the latest skills and knowledge needed for a future in Urban Planning. A key feature of our course is the focus on developing your digital and data skills needed for planning smart cities, which are highly attractive to graduate employers. These new digital and data skills will provide us with new ways to understand, plan and adapt our cities.

The course incorporates practical and hands-on experiences, such as live case studies, in many aspects of urban planning and design, helping you link theory to practice. It examines ways in which our cities and urban environments have historically developed and been designed, whilst challenging you to propose visions of the future in order to make our cities healthier, more vibrant, sustainable and safer. You will focus on the role and potential of the planning profession to manage technological change in cities and exploit the potential of smart cities to enhance our urban environments.

Urban Planning is a multidisciplinary subject. You will benefit from studying in the School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering, providing an integrated and holistic approach. As such, you will gain invaluable practical experience of working in interdisciplinary teams with Architecture, Civil and Architectural Engineering, Commercial Management and Quantity Surveying, and Construction Engineering Management students, giving you a unique insight into the role of planners in development projects, thereby simulating your potential future career. In addition, the course draws from the expertise of leading academics from across the School and University, particularly Geography and Environment.

Throughout the Urban Planning course, our students normally undertake several field trips each year. Field trips are an exciting and invaluable learning experience as they provide unique insights and opportunities to explore planning in the real world. All field trips, which are incorporated within modules, are included within your tuition fee.

What's the difference between BSc and MPlan?

BSc and MPlan students study the same course for the first three years of the programme and transfer is possible between the two degrees. Students on the Urban Planning BSc (Hons) degree may transfer to the MPlan course at the end of Year 2 subject to satisfactory performance.

Our BSc in Urban Planning will enable you to develop a broad understanding of the main principles of spatial planning and placemaking and forms the foundation for a successful career in planning.

Our MPlan in Urban Planning gives you the opportunity to undertake a combined planning course. In addition to the principles of spatial planning and placemaking, it is designed to enable you in your final year to explore ideas, perspectives and debates in a specialist area of planning. The final year includes a significant integrated planning project and specialist areas of study may include transport planning, infrastructure planning or advanced analysis for smart cities.