Your urban studies and planning career

We provide advice, guidance and support in securing work experience, placements and graduate roles to help you discover and achieve your career goals.

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Placements and work experience

We encourage you to undertake placements and work experience during your studies, to increase your opportunities for graduate employment, as well as offer you insight into your future career.

Urban studies and planning academics, students and external visitors offer an insight into workshops ran by level 4 students who are helping to introduce A Level geography students to the field of planning

Graduate job roles

Our urban studies and planning graduates go on to a range of roles in both the public and private sectors. These roles include town planners, transport planners, urban designers, surveyors, community development workers, regeneration officers, sustainability consultants and housing officers.

Recent graduates have gone on to work for a number of high profile organisations, including:

AirBnB
Arup
BNP Paribas Real Estate
CBRE
Deloitte
Leeds City Council
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
Peak District National Park
Savills
UN-Habitat

You can also search through our Graduate Outcomes data to find out which jobs and postgraduate study options graduates from the school moved on to after finishing their course.

Professional skills development

Throughout our course modules, we highlight the employability skills you gain, making it easier for you to communicate these when applying for placements, further study, and graduate jobs. Urban studies and planning students are given opportunities through their programme courses to develop graduate skills and attributes.

Many of these relate to the requirements of employers and professional bodies such as the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). The knowledge and skills delivered within programmes are relevant to the job market and support is provided to enable students to explore their future options, and make transitions into placements and graduate opportunities.

Linked to this programme level approach to employability are the priorities of sustainability and inclusivity, both of which are relevant to urban studies as a discipline and as an employment sector.

Guest lectures

We arrange regular guest lectures from professionals in the planning and real estate industries. Many of these are former alumni, which means they are particularly invested in the success of our students.

As well as giving insights into day-to-day professional activities, these lectures discuss the key skills that employers are looking for, which helps our students stand out in the crowded job market.

SURE

The Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) is an opportunity in your penultimate year of study to be directly involved in research activity at the University of Sheffield, working in partnership with an academic staff member on a bespoke real-life research project during the summer vacation.

Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) (student login required)

Faculty of Social Sciences Employability hub

Social sciences students have access to an employability hub based in Cornerstone in the Wave, which offers bespoke employability support.

The hub team can help you to explore career options, build experience and skills, and it organises events that are tailored to social sciences subjects.

Social sciences employability hub events

Past events have included: