Planning’s experience gap: why we can’t wait for the next generation to learn on the job

Ask any experienced planner where they learned the most, and chances are they’ll say: on the job. It was on a site visit in the rain, in a tense committee meeting, or across the table from a case officer who knew the local plan better than some of the people who wrote it. That knowledge is hard-won and largely unwritten. A large part is also about to leave the profession, and we are not ready.

The figures are stark. RTPI research shows that more than half (57.5%) of the local government planning workforce is over 45, and fewer than four in ten expect to still be in their current role in three years. A separate RTPI survey found that 15% of planners plan to retire and a further 5% intend to leave the profession altogether. The Home Builders Federation now estimates a shortfall of 2,660 planning officers across England and Wales, with 90 per cent of authorities below full staffing.

Over the next five to ten years, a generation of seasoned planners will retire. These are people who have steered schemes through multiple iterations of national policy, several downturns and more housing ministers than anyone cares to count. The cohort coming through behind them is talented, digitally fluent and committed. But many simply have not had the years on the ground, and practical experience at the coalface is not as easy to obtain in 2026, with a greater reliance on online ways of working, over physical presence in the office or on site.

The timing could hardly be worse. The new NPPF, published on 17 August, is the first comprehensive rewrite of the framework since 2012. It replaces the long established direction-setting approach with a new decision-making structure and a more rules-based approach. On paper, that hopefully means greater clarity. In practice, every new framework brings a period of interpretation, and that is exactly when judgement, precedent and experience matter most. Local authorities are being asked to clear backlogs, accelerate decisions and absorb enhanced responsibilities all at once.

Government deserves some credit for recognising the problem. Last year’s Budget committed £48m to recruit an extra 350 planners in England, expand the Pathways to Planning graduate scheme and create a Planning Careers Hub to retain and retrain existing staff. Pathways to Planning has already placed more than 200 new planners in over 100 local planning authorities since 2023. But recruitment is not the same as capability. With the best will in the world, a graduate hired this autumn will not be a confident senior case officer for several years. Meanwhile, the RTPI estimates that new age limits on Level 7 apprenticeship funding will cost the profession around 200 planners a year, roughly 70% of them in local government. Policy is pulling in two directions at once.

There is also a temptation to believe AI will bridge the gap, and that a junior officer with the right software can do what once took 20 years to learn. AI has a genuine role in summarising consultation responses, checking validation and searching policy. But it cannot read the mood of a committee, weigh up the positives and negatives and come to a professional judgement, or think laterally in discussions with – say – transport experts to unlock a stalled scheme. Judgement is learned by doing the work alongside people who have done it before. If we rely on technology to upskill the next generation, we will produce planners who can find an answer but cannot understand how that answer was arrived at, let alone whether it is the best one under the circumstances.

So what can the industry do? First, capture knowledge while it is still in the building. That means structured mentoring, shadowing, and flexible or phased retirement that keeps senior expertise in the system for longer. Second, the private and public sectors should invest in each other’s talent, building stronger partnerships through talent exchange, joint training on the new NPPF and shared CPD. Third, we should widen the routes in by backing career changers and making the case for apprenticeship funding for those over 21. Finally, we need to sell the profession better. Planning shapes the homes, schools and places people live in, and that story deserves to be told in classrooms and universities.

The danger of failure is clear. Backlogs become permanent. Decisions become slower, more cautious and more prone to appeal, whether supposedly ‘fast-tracked for approval’ or not. Homes, infrastructure and investment are delayed or go elsewhere. The new NPPF promises greater certainty, but a framework is only as good as the people applying it.

Planning has always been a people business. If we want the next generation to be ready in ten years’ time, the training has to start now.