Planning, Environment and Development
Planning, environment, and development is the discipline concerned with how land is used, how communities are shaped, and how the built and natural environments are managed to meet the needs of present and future populations. Planners work on questions that are central to the quality of people's lives: how to attract investment and create employment, how to provide adequate housing, how to design sustainable transport networks, how to protect environmental quality, and how to make communities resilient to climate change and other pressures. This three-year full-time degree at Queen's University of Belfast includes a sandwich placement year and embedded work placement experience, providing professional grounding alongside the academic programme.
You will develop the knowledge and skills to make decisions that shape processes of growth and development, covering topics from urban design and housing policy through environmental management, transport planning, and economic development to the legal and institutional frameworks within which planning operates. Queen's programme attends to the particular contexts and challenges of Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland, while also developing the broadly transferable knowledge and skills that planners need wherever they work. The sandwich year gives you extended professional experience in a planning authority or consultancy, connecting your academic learning to professional practice.
A typical entry tariff of 136 UCAS points reflects a moderately selective admissions standard. A professionally oriented degree in planning is the standard route into chartered planner status through the Royal Town Planning Institute. Graduates move into careers in local authority planning departments, urban regeneration, environmental consultancy, property development, housing associations, transport agencies, and the growing field of sustainability and climate adaptation planning.
Many continue to postgraduate study or seek RTPI membership.