We're Hiring: Senior Urban Planner
Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)
Employment Type: Full-Time
Experience Level: Senior
Work Arrangement: Fully Remote
About UsWe are a globally focused organization committed to creating sustainable, resilient, connected, and inclusive urban environments across diverse markets. Our multidisciplinary teams work across Planning, Architecture, Engineering, Transportation, Infrastructure, Environment, Real Estate, Government Relations, and Community Engagement to shape long-term development strategies and high-quality places.
Our work combines evidence-based planning, spatial analysis, stakeholder collaboration, policy development, and development management to support balanced growth, efficient infrastructure, economic opportunity, environmental sustainability, and improved quality of life.
The RoleWe are seeking an experienced Senior Urban Planner to lead complex urban-planning studies, master-planning initiatives, development frameworks, land-use strategies, spatial planning projects, and planning advisory assignments. The ideal candidate will combine strong planning expertise with analytical, design, project-management, stakeholder-engagement, and policy capabilities to develop practical and sustainable solutions for cities, communities, districts, and development areas.
Key Responsibilities
- * Develop and implement urban-planning strategies, frameworks, policies, and development plans.
- Lead urban-planning projects from initial research and analysis through concept development, consultation, approvals, and implementation.
- Prepare and review master plans, structure plans, local plans, district plans, development frameworks, and land-use plans.
- Conduct comprehensive assessments of existing land use, development patterns, infrastructure, mobility, population, demographics, economic activity, and environmental conditions.
- Analyze urban growth patterns and identify opportunities for sustainable development and regeneration.
- Develop land-use strategies that balance residential, commercial, industrial, institutional, recreational, cultural, and mixed-use requirements.
- Establish planning principles, development objectives, spatial frameworks, and growth strategies for major development areas.
- Prepare urban development scenarios and evaluate alternative planning options.
- Develop spatial concepts, urban frameworks, land-use diagrams, development strategies, and planning recommendations.
- Coordinate with architects, landscape architects, transport planners, infrastructure engineers, environmental specialists, economists, real-estate professionals, and other technical disciplines.
- Integrate transportation, infrastructure, utilities, public realm, environmental, housing, economic, and social considerations into planning proposals.
- Assess development capacity, density, floor-area requirements, land-use distribution, and infrastructure implications.
- Evaluate development proposals against applicable planning policies, zoning requirements, development controls, and strategic objectives.
- Review planning applications, development proposals, master-planning submissions, and related technical documentation.
- Provide professional planning advice to clients, developers, government authorities, project teams, and senior management.
- Interpret planning policies, regulations, zoning frameworks, development standards, and statutory requirements.
- Prepare planning reports, technical memoranda, policy recommendations, development assessments, and approval documentation.
- Conduct site assessments, field surveys, site analysis, and development-context reviews.
- Identify planning constraints, opportunities, risks, and implementation requirements.
- Assess the social, economic, environmental, and spatial implications of proposed developments.
- Develop urban design and place-making principles in collaboration with relevant design disciplines.
- Promote walkable, accessible, connected, mixed-use, and human-centered urban environments.
- Integrate public spaces, parks, community facilities, civic amenities, and pedestrian networks into development strategies.
- Support transit-oriented development, multimodal mobility, active transportation, and sustainable transport planning.
- Coordinate land-use planning with transportation networks, infrastructure capacity, utilities, and service provision.
- Assess housing requirements, population growth, employment projections, and community-facility needs.
- Develop strategies for affordable housing, diverse housing types, and inclusive neighborhood development where applicable.
- Evaluate the impacts of demographic, economic, technological, and environmental changes on urban development.
- Support urban regeneration, brownfield redevelopment, neighborhood revitalization, and strategic growth initiatives.
- Develop planning strategies for new communities, urban extensions, redevelopment areas, and major mixed-use developments.
- Conduct urban capacity studies and development-potential assessments.
- Prepare demographic, socioeconomic, land-use, and development forecasts to support planning decisions.
- Use GIS, spatial databases, mapping tools, and other analytical technologies to support planning analysis.
- Produce and interpret spatial maps, land-use plans, development diagrams, and planning datasets.
- Analyze geographic, demographic, environmental, infrastructure, and transportation data to inform planning recommendations.
- Establish planning indicators and spatial-performance measures to evaluate development outcomes.
- Coordinate public consultation, stakeholder engagement, workshops, design reviews, and community meetings.
- Engage government authorities, community representatives, developers, landowners, infrastructure providers, and other stakeholders.
- Prepare consultation materials, presentation decks, visual planning information, and stakeholder communications.
- Record, analyze, and incorporate stakeholder feedback into planning strategies where appropriate.
- Manage sensitive planning issues, competing interests, objections, and stakeholder concerns professionally.
- Support planning approvals, statutory consultations, regulatory submissions, and authority coordination.
- Maintain strong working relationships with municipalities, planning authorities, government agencies, and regulatory bodies.
- Coordinate planning submissions and responses to authority comments.
Key Performance Indicators
- * Urban-planning project delivery rate
- Master-plan delivery performance
- Planning approval success rate
- Planning submission timeliness
- Authority comment resolution time
- Development assessment turnaround time
- Planning report quality
- Planning recommendation acceptance rate
- Land-use planning accuracy
- Development capacity assessment accuracy
- Spatial-analysis quality
- GIS and mapping accuracy
- Planning compliance rate
- Regulatory compliance
- Stakeholder satisfaction
- Community engagement participation
- Stakeholder feedback incorporation
- Consultation delivery performance
- Planning issue resolution time
- Planning-risk identification and mitigation
- Development scenario evaluation quality
- Infrastructure-planning coordination
- Transport-planning integration
- Public-realm integration
- Housing and community-facility planning effectiveness
- Sustainability and climate-resilience integration
- Urban regeneration project performance
- Development-phasing effectiveness
- Planning project budget adherence
- Consultant performance
- Consultant deliverable quality
- Project milestone achievement
- Planning documentation accuracy
- Quality-assurance completion
- Policy and regulatory update completion
- Planning process efficiency
- Digital planning-tool adoption
- Spatial-data quality
- Executive reporting timeliness
- Client and stakeholder satisfaction
- Planning team productivity
- Junior planner development
- Continuous-improvement implementation
Ideal CandidateThe successful candidate should have strong experience in urban planning, master planning, spatial planning, development planning, urban design, land-use planning, planning consultancy, or strategic city development, preferably within government, planning consultancy, real estate, infrastructure, engineering, property development, or large-scale urban-development environments.
The candidate should demonstrate:
- Proven experience leading complex urban-planning and master-planning projects.
- Strong knowledge of land-use planning, development frameworks, zoning, and urban-development principles.
- Experience preparing master plans, structure plans, district plans, development strategies, and planning reports.
- Strong understanding of urban growth, development patterns, density, land-use distribution, and development capacity.
- Experience assessing planning applications and major development proposals.
