Urban Planning, Design and Management BSc

Course overview

The built environment around us shapes how we live our daily lives. Future oriented city planning is required to ensure cities meet the changing needs of their communities, whilst addressing major challenges such as climate change, regeneration and public health.

Urban Planning, Design and Management BSc is designed to train a new generation of urban practitioners with the skills and creativity to understand, manage and deliver urban change. Taught at The Bartlett School of Planning, as a student you will learn from leading academic experts how urban planning and design transforms our towns and cities. You will gain an understanding of how economic, social and environmental dimensions impact our urban environments, building specialist knowledge from modules about spatial planning, urban design, transport, climate change, rural planning, urban regeneration, and real estate development.

During your degree you will gain hand-on experience putting the knowledge you have gained in the classroom into practice. You will have the opportunity to participate in field work, site visits and project work, engaging in live examples of urban planning, design and regeneration challenges. We offer a voluntary 2-week work experience placement with one of our partner organisations. The placement is supported by careers workshops to help you find the career path that’s right for you and take the next steps towards it. You will also have the opportunity to take your practice overseas by choosing to study abroad for a term in your second year, taking advantage of our long-established links with many universities in Europe, as well as a growing list in the USA, Australia and the Asia-Pacific.

Urban planning is about the future-oriented planning and management of urban, social and economic change in the built and natural environment. UCL’s Urban Planning, Design and Management BSc teaches you the skills to work in traditional planning careers as well as a range of related professional and specialist areas. This degree is recognised by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and accredited by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

The English language level for this programme is: Level 2

The foundation of your career

Graduates find work in a vast range of positions in planning, urban design, economic development, housing, transport, and regeneration as well as other diverse sectors where their analytical, negotiating, and problem-solving skills are valued.

Our students go on to work in the private, public, and third sector including planning, urban design, and infrastructure development consultancy firms, property development companies, local government, civil service, and national and international non-governmental organisations. Graduates have found employment in international world leading planning consultancies such as ARUP, AECOM, Turley Associates, Lichfields, as well as in many local authorities in London and the UK.

Due to the nature of our BSc programmes as a route for eligible membership of the Royal Town Planning Institute and Royal Institute for Chartered Surveyors, many of our graduates also go on to further study.

(HESA Graduate Outcomes surveys 2017-2021)

Employability

The programme enables you to acquire highly transferable knowledge and skills such as data collection, analysis and presentation, graphic skills, GIS, the ability to resolve problems and conflicts, negotiation and mediation, team work and leadership, managing work tasks, preparing and writing professional reports, as well as written, graphic and oral presentation skills.