Principal Town Planner (Policy)

Aecom; Ledston; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

AECOM is seeking a Principal Planner to lead and deliver planning policy and strategy projects across the UK. Based in London with potential for other locations, you will oversee multi-disciplinary teams, maintain client relationships and contribute to business development while ensuring quality and safety standards.

The role requires substantial experience in planning policy, strong stakeholder engagement, and RTPI accreditation.

Qualifications

• Significant experience leading and contributing to planning policy and strategy development in a consultancy or public sector role.
• Client-focused with strong interpersonal skills and a collaborative working approach.
• Degree in Town Planning and RTPI membership or equivalent professional body.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage planning policy projects and strategy development.
• Coordinate multi-disciplinary teams and ensure timely delivery.
• Represent the organisation with clients and authorities at events.
• Nurture client relationships and contribute to business development.
• Uphold quality assurance and health and safety standards.

Skills

Leadership

Client relations

Business development

Strategic planning

Education

Town Planning degree

Job description

Job Description

Start here. Grow here.

Due to a significant increase in planning policy project wins and new opportunities, we are looking to bring in a Principal Planner to work with senior colleagues to manage our growing workload. You will be based in our flagship London Aldgate Tower office but other locations could be considered including Basingstoke, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Chesterfield, Nottingham, Plymouth and Cambridge.

Here’s what you’ll do:

Team Leadership and Development

• Participate in the successful operation and management of the town planning team

Planning Strategy and Expertise

• Lead and assist on key planning policy projects, including supporting local authority policy and strategy development, coordination and delivery of local plan evidence studies, strategic growth studies, infrastructure strategies and other policy and strategy commissions.
• Offer strategic planning advice to other client and internal teams.
• Provide effective representation for the organisation, developing and managing relationships with clients, local authorities and other stakeholders through project work and through attendance at conferences and other networking events.
• Sharing technical knowledge and excellence.

Project Management

• Ensure projects are delivered successfully on budget and within programme timelines.
• Coordinate multi-disciplinary teams for seamless project execution.

Quality Assurance and Compliance

• Oversee the deliverables produced by the planning policy team.
• Implement and uphold quality assurance and health and safety principles.

Business Development

• Contribute to the business development strategy, nurturing client relationships.
• Lead and assist in the preparation of commercial tenders to secure new opportunities.

Does this sound like something you can do, and do well? If so, read on…

About our team

AECOM is a top ten UK planning consultancy by size, employing more than 70 Chartered or Licentiate Planners. The AECOM Planning Practice projects include some of the largest, most complex and high profile development and regeneration projects in the UK for both public and private sector clients. We are a dynamic planning team and work closely with colleagues in other related disciplines, including masterplanning, landscape, environment, sustainability, transport and economics. Examples of our project work include:

• Sub-Regional Spatial Plans - AECOM is a leading provider of sub-regional growth studies and evidence base for plans and policy (including our strategic planning work in the OxCam Arc, Thames Estuary, Hertfordshire and the East Midlands). For many years, we have also been thought leaders and enablers for new communities and Garden Towns (including research for MHCLG, Local Government Association and Town and Country Planning Association).
• Local Plans – Providing local planning authorities with local plan evidence and support is a key area in the policy team. We have worked on the local plans of over 100 authorities in the last decade. This includes the full range of evidence base studies, secondments, critical friend support and coordinating multi-disciplinary teams to provide evidence to inform and test planning policy at all stages of plan-making.
• Strategic Masterplans - We have masterplanned new Garden Communities totalling almost 100,000 homes (with current examples including Southern Manydown in Basingstoke and Naas North West Quadrant in Ireland). Our work continues to create places where people want to live and invest over the long term.
• Neighbourhood Planning - Since 2011, we have supported several hundred local communities with their neighbourhood plan making. We offer expertise across all aspects of the plan-making process - from scoping and robust evidence base production to stakeholder engagement, appraisal and option development to plan production, design, delivery, adoption, monitoring; as well as overall project and process management.

Joining AECOM will provide you with opportunities for career progression within a positive culture where learning and development is actively supported and promoted.

Qualifications

Ready to push the limits of what’s possible?

• Significant relevant experience of leading and contributing to planning policy and strategy development in a consultancy or public sector role.
• Client focus, with good interpersonal skills and a collaborative working approach.
• Existing relationships with clients and local authorities.
• A business development mindset, with demonstrable experience of work winning and developing relationships with existing and new clients.
• Degree in Town Planning or a related discipline, and membership of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) or equivalent professional body.

We celebrate diversity, including neurodiversity, and believe it enriches our team. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and abilities. If you are an applicant with a disability that requires reasonable accommodation to complete the application process, please contact us at [e-mail]. At AECOM, we value everyone's unique contributions and perspectives.

If you meet some of the requirements above or have transferable skills you believe would benefit us, we would be delighted to hear from you!

Additional Information

Interested in the role or curious about life at AECOM? Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to explore our AECOM voices, employee stories, latest projects, and much more!

At AECOM, we are committed to maintaining a secure and trustworthy recruitment process and take any fraudulent hiring activity seriously. To support this commitment, all newly hired employees are required to attend an in-person Day 1 onboarding at an AECOM office location as a condition of employment.

About AECOM

AECOM is the world’s trusted infrastructure consulting firm, delivering professional services throughout the project lifecycle – from advisory, planning, design and engineering to program and construction management. On projects spanning transportation, buildings, water, new energy and the environment, our public- and private-sector clients trust us to solve their most complex challenges. Our teams are driven by a common purpose to deliver a better world through our unrivaled technical and digital expertise, a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion, and a commitment to environmental, social and governance priorities. AECOM is a Fortune 500 firm and its Professional Services business had revenue of $16.1 billion in fiscal year 2025. See how we are delivering sustainable legacies for generations to come at aecom.com and @AECOM.

Freedom to Grow in a World of Opportunity

You will have the flexibility you need to do your best work with hybrid work options. Whether you’re working from an AECOM office, remote location or at a client site, you will be working in a dynamic environment where your integrity, entrepreneurial spirit and pioneering mindset are championed.

You will help us foster a safe and respectful workplace, where we invite everyone to bring their whole selves to work using their unique talents, backgrounds and expertise to create transformational outcomes for our clients.

AECOM provides a wide array of compensation, benefits and well-being programs to meet the diverse needs of our employees and their families. We’re the world’s trusted global infrastructure firm, and we’re in this together – your growth and success are ours too.

Join us, and you’ll get all the benefits of being a part of a global, publicly traded firm – access to industry‑leading technology and thinking and transformational work with big impact and work flexibility. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person’s potential, and we’ll help you reach yours.

We are a Disability Confident Employer and will offer an interview to applicants who have a disability or long‑term condition, who meet the minimum/essential criteria for the role. Please let us know using this email address [e-mail] if you would like to apply through the Disability Confident