Planner

One of two planning posts we're filling this autumn. We'll appoint at Planner or Senior Planner level depending on your experience, so if you're further on, look at the Senior Planner role as well.

ET Planning is a town planning consultancy of around 20 people, based in Crowthorne, Berkshire. We help developers, landowners, businesses, councils and community groups with everything from small applications to major schemes.

ET Planning recently won ‘Property Business of the Year’ at the Thames Valley Property Awards 2026.

You'll work in one of our two planning teams, led by an Associate Director, on a steady mix of planning applications, written representations appeals and supporting reports. Most of the work is for private clients across the south east. You'll have your own tasks on live cases from the start, with a senior colleague reviewing your work, and a clear route to running cases yourself.

• Prepare and project-manage planning applications, written representations appeals and the reports that support them.
• Carry out careful policy and site analysis, and review constraints, opportunities and risks in a structured way, so your recommendations stand up.
• Give clients balanced, evidence-based planning advice.
• Deal diplomatically with council planning officers and the other consultants on a project.
• Contribute to project discussions and help shape practical, well-considered strategies.
• Keep accurate project records and deliver your work in an organised, consistent and reliable way.
• Attend planning committees and engagement meetings.
• Help with new enquiries: draft fee quotes to our procedure when briefed by a colleague, and take your turn on the main phone line.
• Take part in networking and business development, and contribute to our marketing (blogs and events).

• A discretionary bonus scheme
• 24 days' holiday plus bank holidays, and 3 days' Christmas holiday gifted
• Flexible hours: at least half your hours between 9am and 5:30pm, the rest when it suits you
• Flexi-time: time off in lieu of additional hours, for example when you attend planning committee
• Company pension, with the option to pay bonuses into it
• Private medical insurance once you've passed probation
• Hybrid working including home working, pattern to be confirmed
• Regular one-to-ones with your line manager, a personal development plan, and a development guide for each step up the ladder

Please send us your CV, or your LinkedIn profile if it is up to date, and two examples of written work you have authored in your current or previous role, using the form below by the closing date. Please remove client names and anything confidential from your examples. There will be a short test as part of the interview process. You must have the right to work in the UK.

We are interviewing as we go along. If we find the right candidate we will make an offer before the closing date, and the role will then close early, so please apply as soon as you can rather than waiting for the deadline.

Our development guides are written for the person stepping up to each level. This is the one for the Planner step, and it is the standard we measure the role by.

Graduates are learning the ropes, building the technical foundations and finding their feet. The step to Planner is the shift from being shown to being dependable: producing solid work, managing your own basics, and becoming someone the team can rely on for a defined piece of a job.

Graduates are measured by how well they learn. Planners are measured by the work they can be trusted to produce.

1. From learning to contributing

You still learn constantly, but you start carrying real tasks: a section of a report, a research piece, a set of consultation responses. People begin to depend on your output, not just your potential.

Question to ask: "What can I now be trusted to produce that I couldn't six months ago?"

2. Own the task end to end

Take a task all the way. Don't hand back something half-finished and expect it to be picked up. Finish it, check your own work, and present it ready to use.

Question to ask: "Have I actually finished this, or just done the bulk of it?"

3. Ask good questions, at the right time

Asking is a strength, not a weakness, but ask well. Gather your questions, try to work out the answer first, and ask at a sensible moment rather than at every small obstacle. "Here's what I think, am I on the right track?" beats "what do I do next?"

Question to ask: "Have I thought about this before I ask, and is this the right moment to ask?"

4. Manage your own basics

Turn up prepared, keep track of what you've been asked to do, hit the deadlines you're given, and record your time honestly. Getting the fundamentals reliably right is most of what the step up is about.

Question to ask: "Am I on top of my own deadlines and admin without being chased?"

5. Build your technical foundation

This is the stage to build real depth: how the system works, the policy framework, how a good report reads. Be curious, read around the work you're given, and learn from the drafts that come back marked up.

Question to ask: "Am I understanding why, or just copying the pattern?"

6. Be professional and reliable

Be someone easy to work with and easy to rely on: responsive, organised, and steady. Reliability at this stage is what earns you more interesting and more independent work.

Question to ask: "Am I someone the team can depend on without thinking twice?"

The Planner Test

Before presenting an achievement, ask:

• Level 1: What did I do?
• Level 2: Was it finished, correct, and ready to use?
• Level 3: Could it be relied on without much rework?

If you can answer yes to all three, you're working in a Planner-level way.

Speak the language of impact

Even early on, describe the result, not just the effort. "I looked at the planning history" becomes "I pulled together the planning history so the team had the full picture." Reach for produced, completed, researched, prepared, supported.

Final reflection

The step to Planner is about becoming dependable: producing finished, reliable work, managing your own basics, asking good questions, and building genuine technical foundations. It's where you move from learner to contributor.