Senior Urban Planner

AKIJ Feed; Abu Dhabi; Remote; AED 350,000 - 650,000; Full time

Job summary

AKIJ Feed is seeking a Senior Urban Planner to lead urban planning studies, master-planning initiatives, and land-use planning for development projects in the United Arab Emirates. The role is fully remote with full-time employment and senior-level responsibilities.

The ideal candidate will bring extensive experience in planning policy analysis, stakeholder engagement, and multidisciplinary collaboration across GIS, architecture, and transportation to deliver sustainable, resilient urban

Qualifications

• Strong knowledge of urban planning principles, land-use planning, development controls, and spatial planning.
• Proven experience leading complex master-planning and urban development projects.
• Strong understanding of urban form, density, land use, development capacity, and neighborhood planning.
• Experience preparing and reviewing master plans, development frameworks, planning applications, and strategic planning documents.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement urban planning strategies aligned with organizational, municipal, regional, and community objectives.
• Lead complex urban planning and master-planning projects from initial assessment through planning, consultation, approvals, implementation, and review.
• Prepare planning reports, technical assessments, policy recommendations, development briefs, and approval documentation.
• Review planning applications, development submissions, master plans, subdivision proposals, rezoning requests, and related planning documents.
• Provide professional planning advice to senior management, developers, project teams, government authorities, and other stakeholders.
• Coordinate with architects, landscape architects, engineers, transport planners, environmental specialists, GIS professionals, and economists.

Skills

Urban planning

Master planning

Land-use planning

Spatial planning

Stakeholder management

Tools

GIS software

Job description

We're Hiring: Senior Urban Planner

Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)

Employment Type: Full-Time

Experience Level: Senior

Work Arrangement: Fully Remote

About Us

We are a globally focused organization committed to supporting sustainable, resilient, inclusive, and well-designed communities across diverse markets.

Our multidisciplinary teams collaborate across Urban Planning, Architecture, Engineering, Transportation, Infrastructure, Environment, Real Estate, GIS, Government Relations, Development, and Community Engagement to shape places that respond effectively to population growth, economic activity, mobility needs, environmental priorities, and changing community requirements.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Senior Urban Planner to lead urban planning studies, master-planning initiatives, development strategies, land-use planning, policy analysis, spatial assessments, and multidisciplinary planning projects.

The ideal candidate will combine strong planning expertise, analytical capability, design thinking, regulatory knowledge, stakeholder-management skills, and commercial awareness to develop practical planning solutions that balance development objectives, infrastructure capacity, environmental considerations, community needs, and long-term urban sustainability.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement urban planning strategies aligned with organizational, municipal, regional, and community objectives.
• Lead complex urban planning and master-planning projects from initial assessment through planning, consultation, approvals, implementation, and review.
• Prepare and review master plans, development plans, land-use plans, urban frameworks, strategic plans, and planning studies.
• Conduct detailed assessments of land use, development patterns, population growth, infrastructure capacity, transportation networks, environmental constraints, and community needs.
• Develop land-use strategies covering residential, commercial, retail, industrial, institutional, recreational, mixed-use, and other development categories.
• Assess development opportunities and constraints to support strategic land allocation and urban growth.
• Prepare planning concepts, development frameworks, spatial strategies, and urban design principles.
• Coordinate with architects, landscape architects, engineers, transport planners, environmental specialists, GIS professionals, economists, and other technical disciplines.
• Integrate planning, infrastructure, mobility, environmental, economic, and social considerations into coherent development strategies.
• Conduct site analysis, development feasibility assessments, density studies, capacity assessments, and spatial evaluations.
• Review development proposals for consistency with applicable planning policies, zoning requirements, master plans, and development standards.
• Assess proposed land uses, building densities, development intensity, site layouts, connectivity, public spaces, and supporting infrastructure.
• Prepare planning reports, technical assessments, policy recommendations, development briefs, and approval documentation.
• Review planning applications, development submissions, master plans, subdivision proposals, rezoning requests, and related planning documents.
• Provide professional planning advice to senior management, developers, project teams, government authorities, and other stakeholders.
• Interpret planning regulations, zoning requirements, development controls, design guidelines, and applicable statutory requirements.
• Monitor changes in planning legislation, development policies, infrastructure strategies, and regulatory frameworks.
• Support preparation and updating of planning policies, zoning frameworks, development codes, and urban-growth strategies.
• Develop planning guidelines and standards to support consistent and high-quality development outcomes.
• Conduct urban growth and development scenario analysis to assess alternative spatial strategies.
• Evaluate the implications of population growth, demographic change, economic development, housing demand, and employment growth on urban form.
• Develop strategies for sustainable urban expansion, redevelopment, regeneration, densification, and mixed-use development.
• Assess housing needs, affordability considerations, residential capacity, and neighborhood development requirements.
• Integrate transportation and mobility considerations into land-use and development planning.
• Coordinate with transportation specialists on road networks, public transport, pedestrian connectivity, cycling infrastructure, parking, and mobility strategies.
• Assess accessibility and connectivity between residential areas, employment centers, public facilities, commercial areas, and transport nodes.
• Support transit-oriented development and compact, connected urban-development strategies where appropriate.
• Integrate green infrastructure, open-space networks, public-realm strategies, and environmental considerations into planning frameworks.
• Assess climate resilience, environmental risks, resource efficiency, and sustainability considerations in development planning.
• Support planning for resilient communities, infrastructure, public spaces, and essential services.
• Conduct GIS-based spatial analysis and use geospatial information to support planning decisions.
• Collaborate with GIS specialists to develop maps, spatial models, land-use datasets, and planning visualizations.
• Review demographic, economic, environmental, transportation, and development data to identify planning trends and opportunities.
• Develop planning scenarios, spatial models, development forecasts, and supporting analytical frameworks.
• Prepare high-quality maps, diagrams, development concepts, presentations, and visual planning materials.
• Lead stakeholder engagement activities including workshops, consultation sessions, public meetings, and technical coordination meetings.
• Engage with government authorities, developers, landowners, investors, community representatives, infrastructure providers, and other stakeholders.
• Facilitate multidisciplinary workshops to resolve planning, development, infrastructure, and design issues.
• Address stakeholder concerns and develop balanced planning recommendations.
• Support community engagement and ensure relevant community perspectives are considered in planning decisions.
• Coordinate planning approvals, technical reviews, comments, conditions, and responses across relevant authorities and disciplines.
• Track planning deliverables, approvals, dependencies, risks, and project milestones.
• Manage planning project budgets, resources, schedules, consultants, and technical deliverables where applicable.
• Prepare scopes of work and technical requirements for external planning consultants and

Key Performance Indicators

• Urban planning project delivery rate
• Planning project completion timeliness
• Master-plan delivery performance
• Planning approval success rate
• Planning application turnaround time
• Planning submission quality
• Regulatory compliance rate
• Development-plan compliance
• Land-use planning accuracy
• Spatial-analysis accuracy
• Development capacity assessment accuracy
• Population and demand forecast accuracy
• Planning recommendation acceptance rate
• Stakeholder satisfaction
• Community engagement participation
• Consultation response rate
• Stakeholder issue-resolution time
• Planning approval cycle efficiency
• Planning-condition closure rate
• Consultant deliverable quality
• Planning project budget adherence
• Planning project resource utilization
• Development risk identification
• Planning risk mitigation effectiveness
• Infrastructure-capacity alignment
• Transportation integration quality
• Accessibility and connectivity performance
• Public-space and open-space provision
• Sustainability and resilience integration
• Housing-capacity planning effectiveness
• Mixed-use development integration
• GIS and spatial-data utilization
• Planning-data quality
• Planning-report accuracy
• Policy and regulatory update completion
• Planning standards compliance
• Development-review consistency
• Planning process improvement
• Digital-planning adoption
• Smart-city initiative contribution
• Planning team capability development
• Continuous-improvement implementation

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate should have strong experience in urban planning, master planning, land-use planning, development planning, spatial planning, urban development, regeneration, or strategic planning, preferably within a planning consultancy, government authority, real-estate organization, infrastructure developer, engineering firm, or multidisciplinary professional-services environment.

The candidate should demonstrate:

• Strong knowledge of urban planning principles, land-use planning, development controls, and spatial planning.
• Proven experience leading complex master-planning and urban-development projects.
• Strong understanding of urban form, density, land use, development capacity, and neighborhood planning.
• Experience preparing and reviewing master plans, development frameworks, planning applications, and strategic planning documents.
• Strong knowledge of planning policy, zoning, development regulations, and approval processes.