29 Mar 2017

Demand for planners in Melbourne and Sydney is “red hot” with many consultancies finding it difficult to fill positions. John Wynne, Managing Partner at Urbis, said it’s an incredibly busy time for planners and so recruiting them is a challenge.

“It’s fair to say that nationally the demand for planners is as high as it’s ever been and that’s across all levels of government, planning agencies, non-planning agencies that require planners working in them; it’s also in the consulting business,” he said.

“There’s been a real massive increase in demand for planners all across Australia – Victoria and NSW probably most notably.”

Planning Institute of Australia runs an online employment directory and fortnightly bulletin featuring planning jobs around the nation. Chief Executive Officer David Williams, who took the reins at the PIA in December, said Melbourne and Sydney accounted for 80 per cent of the job opportunities in Australia.

In the most recent PIA bulletin there were 67 jobs advertised – 28 in Melbourne and 20 in Sydney. At Christmas time there were 58 jobs – 40 in Melbourne and 13 in Sydney.

“Overall the job number vacancies are running at almost an all-time high,” Williams said. “Melbourne – it’s really red hot for the planners – and I assume from that there must be some difficulty getting the right people in the right jobs.

“Sydney is strong, Queensland is OK and all other capitals are flat to negative.

“It’s clearly very patchy with activity focused on those two cities but the other cities are so quiet. We’re seeing a little bit of migration, more younger planners – those that are more mobile – coming out of Adelaide and heading to Melbourne.”

There are two main reasons for the shortage – the general level of activity and increased bureaucracy

Industry sources say they can’t find enough planners as local governments are “soaking them up”.  In Melbourne one senior planning consultancy principal told The Fifth Estate clients were flooding his office for help to understand what planning changes in Victoria meant for their property – one set comprised Plan Melbourne changes and another changes to residential zoned property.

Wynne said he has been talking to people in local government and they are struggling to fill their teams too. “Particularly in the statutory side of the business where there’s a lot more regulation and a lot more development applications, planning permits, being processed,” he said.

According to the PIA, the planner shortage is pretty much across the board. “We do that typical quadrant of private to public practice and statutory to strategic,” Williams said. “And there’s no clear pattern coming through on which of those areas are the more acute shortage.”

Urbis has more than 200 planners across the company in Australia and offshore. Wynne said it’s always a challenge and they are constantly recruiting.

“Certainly from a consultant’s point of view where we often try to recruit people who have experience in government or other consultancies – it’s even more of a challenge to get people who are suitable and experienced to take a role in the consulting area,” he said. “We’re fairly demanding in the sort of person that we look to hire.”

There are two main reasons for the shortage – the general level of activity and increased bureaucracy, Wynne says.

“The development industry has been very buoyant and particularly on the east coast of Australia over the last three to four years. So there’s more development applications and processes being required so it’s just the sheer activity in the industry that’s causing it.”

In Sydney, planners are playing a massive role in transport, both soft and hard infrastructure. “There’s more strategic planning happening in Sydney than has happened for 20 years,” Wynne said. “There is a place for planners in all those levels of government and agencies that are involved with that so there is an absolutely massive demand in that space.”

At the same time planning controls are becoming more detailed. There is more regulation, more process, and more bureaucracy. “Councils and consultants and government and private need to have people to manage that process,” Wynne said. “We don’t see the planning system becoming any simpler; it’s becoming quite demanding and therefore you need people to manage those processes.”

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