What Planning Skills Are in Demand?

As a transdisciplinary profession with multiple specializations, city and regional planning seems to perennially suffer from an identity crisis (Myers and Banerjee, 2005). Answering basic questions such as “What is a planner?” or “What does a planner do?” can be a challenge. Yet fostering a strong and coherent sense of identity is critical to attracting new talent, maintaining a consistent curriculum across accredited university programs, and ensuring the continued health and survival of the profession.

Panelists summarize and comment on their framework for measuring the skill content of jobs using online vacancy descriptions (a.k.a. job ads) posted by the two major planning-focused jobs boards in North America: the American Planning Association and Planetizen. Based on an analysis of term frequencies and co-citation patterns, they share the skills that planning employers are most often looking for in new hires, and distinguish those top skills by specialization and experience level. The panel revisits the issue of professional identity, identifying those core, or profession-defining, skills that transcend specializations. Share how upskilling for the future can advance inclusive and equitable planning.