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Urban planner skills for your resume and career

Q: What hard/technical skills are most important for Urban Planners?

GIS (especially ArcPro), Microsoft applications (especially Excel), and familiarity with video conference technology (especially zoom, Teams, and WebEx) are key. MyPermitNow, Municode, and Legistar also are useful. One student took an Excel class at Ohio University, and that prepared her well for her first job.

Q: What skills stand out on Urban Planner resumes?

Experience in an internship looks really good on the resume. It can also be critical when it comes to lining up references. One of my students had "hands-on" local government experience thanks to an internship with the City of Athens Planner. This cemented her interest in a planning career and impressed the officials at the municipality that hired her. Two of my students participated in an urban sustainability-themed study away program in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were in the field often during this 5-week summer program, learning from experts in planning history and urban design. The experienced really sharpened their research, presentation, and team-building skills.

Q: What soft skills should all Urban Planners possess?

One student attributed her being hired to having very good interviewing skills. She added that it was important to be "flexible and willing to learn,"; "motivated and a self-starter,"; and "interested in finding better ways of doing things and keeping up with projects." The students said that having good networking skills was valuable because you have to work with a variety of different people and groups, including directors, property owners, planning and zoning commissioners, city council members, private firms, city managers, and mayors.

Updated January 8, 2025

6 min read

Quoted experts

Dr. Aaron Golub,

Alessandro Rigolon

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical urban planner skills. We ranked the top skills for urban planners based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 11.1% of urban planner resumes contained gis as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills an urban planner needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 urban planner skills for your resume and career

1. GIS

A geographic information system (GIS) is a tool for capturing, storing, manipulating, analyzing, managing and presenting various forms of geographic data.

Here's how urban planners use gis:

Developed a framework to identify suitable land for development using land suitability techniques in GIS.
Designed GIS databases and applications management of environmental issues regarding land development planning.

2. Infrastructure

Infrastructure includes the organizational and physical structures needed to run an area or a society smoothly. It is a group of basic facilities required for any society or firm to run sustainably and efficiently. The infrastructural system is a high investing area and helps majorly in flourishing the economy and prosperity of a country. It is an underlying system needed for ensuring the safety and comfort of the public and to run a country smoothly. All the tasks needed to be performed for a flourishing economy and a happy and healthy public are included in infrastructure.

Here's how urban planners use infrastructure:

Conducted sustainable and environmental impact, green infrastructure and site analysis and detailed construction drawings and rendered images.
Facilitated community meetings on land development and infrastructure improvements throughout District B.

3. Visualization

Here's how urban planners use visualization:

Drafted construction documents and all visualization works.

4. ArcGIS

Here's how urban planners use arcgis:

Performed statistical analysis, prepared planning reports and generated ArcGIS maps.
Analyzed performance measures using ArcGIS and CUBE to evaluate the effectiveness of the 2035 Cost Feasible Plan.

5. Sketch

Here's how urban planners use sketch:

Make conception design proposal with Sketch Up and Photoshop.
Make a Process Planning Sketch to convey special instructions to the proper fabrication department when required.

6. Community Development

Community development refers to the process where community members are being supported by agencies to identify or take collective action on issues that are important to them.

Here's how urban planners use community development:

Administered Community Development for Economic Development Grant writing and formulation of Zoning Ordinance for Personal Wireless Services Facilities.
Developed and implemented community development revitalization strategies with local organizations and community stakeholders from the Austin and West Garfield communities.

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7. Regional Planning

Here's how urban planners use regional planning:

Responded and managed requests for the production of digital datasets and maps for physical and regional planning.
Prepared demographic profiles for neighborhood planning areas and population projections by traffic zone for Regional Planning Commission.

8. Government Agencies

Here's how urban planners use government agencies:

Performed review analysis studies of urban renewal projects, processed applications and attended meetings with government agencies involved with urban renewal.
Supervised primary data collection and conducted training sessions for elected representatives of various local government agencies of Bangladesh.

9. Technical Reports

Technical reports are a type of document that is used to indicate either the progress, result, or process of scientific research or the state of problems occurring within such research. A technical report may also showcase the report's overall conclusion and may also include recommendations. This kind of report does not require a peer review and isn't published officially but distributed within the organizations where it was formed.

Here's how urban planners use technical reports:

Authored 6 of 8 2035 LRTP document chapters; also authored 6 of 7 technical reports of the 2035 LRTP.
Transit and corridor analysis GIS/Mapping services Environmental justice analysis Comprehensive & multijurisdictional planning Prepared technical reports Implemented public outreach initiatives

10. CAD

Here's how urban planners use cad:

Turned concept sketches for neo-traditional neighborhood design into CAD drawings.
Manage architectural drawings and supporting documents using Auto CAD software.

11. Photoshop

Here's how urban planners use photoshop:

Worked with the marketing team using Photoshop & PageMaker.
Produced extraordinary realistic renderings using 3DS MAX, VRay, and Photoshop.

12. Community Planning

Community planning is the strategic formulation of short and long-term goals, visions, guidelines, protocols, and policies to strengthen community development operations. It primarily involves an extensive amount of research, which also includes interviews and assessments concerning different families and individuals.

Here's how urban planners use community planning:

Produced community outreach initiatives that maximized public involvement in community planning process.
Managed development of a new mixed-use ordinance for targeted areas beyond the City's MAX Light Rail Station Community Planning Areas.

13. Development Applications

Here's how urban planners use development applications:

Provided comprehensive planning analysis in the concurrent review of many commercial, industrial and residential land use development applications.
Prepared memorandums on development applications for municipal clients.

14. Data Collection

Data collection means to analyze and collect all the necessary information. It helps in carrying out research and in storing important and necessary information. The most important goal of data collection is to gather the information that is rich and accurate for statistical analysis.

Here's how urban planners use data collection:

Generated Methodology Protocol documents for all current data collection programs.
Census data collection and analysis.

15. Community Engagement

Community engagement is the process of working harmoniously with and through groups of people connected by geographic proximity, special interests, or similar situations to solve problems that affect the well-being of those people. Community engagement aims to better engage the community to achieve long-term sustainable results, processes, relationships, discourses, decision-making, or implementation for the benefit of the community.

Here's how urban planners use community engagement:

Cultivated community engagement by educating citizens about good urban design and how they can enhance the district image.

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What skills help Urban Planners find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on urban planner resumes?

Dr. Aaron Golub

Director and Associate Professor, Portland State University

Public engagement and communication skills, project management, skills in understanding and engaging with diverse communities, graphic design and visual communication skills, written communication, GIS, excel and quantitative analysis, survey and interview skills.

What soft skills should all urban planners possess?

Alessandro Rigolon

Assistant Professor, University of Utah

- Working with others collaboratively (including people from other fields)

- Communicating with residents and elected officials effectively

- Dealing with conflict among different interest groups during planning processes (e.g., developers vs. environmentalists). Conflict arises quite often, both for specific projects (e.g., a proposed development) and citywide plans (e.g., affordable housing plan).

- Developing and maintaining relationships and trust with community-based organizations, which often support community engagement activities for projects and plans

- Being committed to equity and inclusion

- Being able to work across political jurisdictions (e.g., for projects or plans spanning more than one city)

What hard/technical skills are most important for urban planners?

Alessandro Rigolon

Assistant Professor, University of Utah

- Geographic Information Systems

- Basic statistical skills

- Some graphic design expertise, including the use of Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and/or Photoshop. Also, ArcGIS StoryMaps are increasingly used by planning agencies to share ongoing results of planning processes

- Some skills in platforms to collect online data for public engagement process, such as ArcGIS Survey123

- Some of the above skills related to applied fields (e.g., architecture), like reading site plans and building plans

- More rarely, AutoCAD and other similar Computer-Aided Design programs

- Good writing is really important but sometimes overlooked

- Capacity to design and manage complex public engagement processes, some of which might last more than one year

What urban planner skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Daniel Trudeau

Professor of Geography, Macalester College

Accumulating experience in leadership skills (decision making, project management, communication, team building) is worthwhile because these are universally valued in work and non-work settings. You don't have to work in a supervisory role to get experience with these skills either. People can gain leadership experience through volunteer work, peer mentoring, as well as through employment opportunities. I recommend connecting with organizations in which you are or have been involved to create an opportunity (a specific role, for a specific time) to work on one or more leadership skills.

Additionally, becoming aware of leadership skills and how and when to use them is valuable too. I recommend reading and reflection exercises in order to personalize your education and develop a plan to build strengths and capabilities in the constellation of leadership skills. There are plenty of free resources available on the topics of emotional intelligence and strengths psychology to build an education program. Separately, developing competencies in basic programming languages - JavaScript, Python - is worthwhile. These are helpful tools in the world of work. Even if you don't plan on using them, knowing how they work is an asset on its own and can strengthen an individual's ability to work with others.

What type of skills will young urban planners need?

Laird Christensen Ph.D.

Director of MS in Resilient and Sustainable Communities, Prescott College

Preparing students for life in a time of climate crisis means, in some cases, training them for jobs that don't even exist yet. We've already seen this, in recent years, with agencies suddenly looking for Resilience Analysts, Global Climate Change Liaisons, and Climate Equity Coordinators. So we need to provide an evolving set of skills and knowledge that prepares our graduates, not only for positions like these, but for whatever the next essential profession turns out to be. Whether students end up working in mitigation or adaptation, resilience planning, or community organizing, there are some foundational skills that I believe they can count on.

In our MS program, this begins with understanding the science of climate change and how to anticipate locally specific needs, based on what climate models suggest about the road ahead. We make sure that students know how to measure progress toward sustainability and resilience; that they acquire the skills needed to engage a range of stakeholders as a part of policy development; that they learn to integrate lessons about energy, food systems, land-use policies, and social equity by applying what they learn locally, on the ground. It's a lot easier to transpose lessons from one community to another than to struggle to apply concepts that have been learned only in the abstract.

Beyond that foundation, some students choose from skills-based courses such as GIS and Resilient Infrastructure and Transportation Systems, while others may be better served by developing their chops in Grant Writing or Alternative Dispute Resolution. We adjust our courses to stay relevant as circumstances change: not only are lessons from the coronavirus being incorporated into courses like Community Health and Emergency Management and Communication, but even our Ecological Design course has begun asking students to reimagine and plan public spaces for a world in which pandemics are likely to become more common. If you want to know what skills are going to be essential, just keep an eye on the news and ask, "What would I need to know to be most useful here?"

Do you want to know more?

List of urban planner skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for an urban planner resume and required skills for an urban planner to have include:

GIS
Infrastructure
Visualization
ArcGIS
Sketch
Community Development
Regional Planning
Government Agencies
Technical Reports
CAD
Photoshop
Community Planning
Development Applications
Data Collection
Community Engagement
Master Plan

Real Estate
Use Development
Comprehensive Plan
Business Development
Economic Development
Transportation Planning
Development Proposals
Urban Design
Project Development
Environmental Design
Technical Assistance
Community Facilities
Planning Commission
Staff Reports
Development Plan
Nepa

Local Government
Building Permits
Commercial Development
Urban Development
Data Analysis
Public Hearings
Analyze Data
Planning Board
Landscape Design
Design Development
Government Officials
Road Design
Public Spaces
Community Workshops

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Urban Planner skills FAQs

What hard/technical skills are most important for Urban Planners?

What skills stand out on Urban Planner resumes?

What soft skills should all Urban Planners possess?

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Updated January 8, 2025

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