2025 Graduate Programme Planning Property & Advisory

What if you could do the kind of work the world needs?

At WSP, you can access our global scale, contribute to landmark projects and connect with the brightest minds in your field to do the best work of your life. You can embrace your curiosity in a culture that celebrates new ideas and diverse perspectives. You can experience a world of opportunity and the chance to shape a career as unique as you.

A little bit more about your role and the team…

Planning work is collaborative, engaging, diverse and exciting. Our work makes a difference to the communities and geographies we work in, providing legacy, economic, social and environmental impacts. We drive best practice in engagement, community relations, consultation and stakeholder management in the delivery of some of the country’s largest infrastructure projects as well as delivering expertise within the water, health, energy and environmental sectors.

We are looking for graduates for our Planning and Development teams and our Transformation & Digital Advisory team, who have an adaptable approach and an appetite to learn in a leading Engineering and Professional services consultancy. We want you to enjoy working in a collaborative environment where you can apply your skills working for a diverse range of clients and projects.

You will join an enthusiastic and supportive team providing you with a challenging and fulfilling working experience. We will fully support your development through enrolment onto a training agreement with an appropriate professional body enabling you to progress to chartered status.

Projects:

Our team work on important developments in the UK, you will be helping deliver projects such as:

• Eden Project Morecambe
• Aston Villa Stadium development
• HS2
• Hynet
• Network Rail
• United Utilities
• Scottish Power Energy Networks

Responsibilities 

Our vision is to be recognised as the greatest and best Development and Planning team in the industry. We strive to achieve this through continuous improvement and a management structure comprising of four pillars, namely: Technical Excellence, People, Clients and Operational Excellence.

We are recruiting for some fantastic opportunities for enthusiastic and motivated graduates for our Planning teams across the UK.

Development Planning & Infrastructure - Join our high-performing team of over 800 colleagues, supporting projects from land acquisition to construction. You will assist in design development, preparing technical documentation, and advising clients. You'll work on multiple projects, gaining support throughout your time as a graduate.

We help clients promote sustainable development, guiding plans from pre-feasibility through to planning consent and multi-disciplinary design.

• Degree backgrounds considered: MEng Civil Engineering
• Locations available: Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle, Guildford, Basingstoke, Cardiff and Bristol.

Planning Consultancy & Infrastructure Planning - As part of our Planning Consultancy team, you’ll guide clients through the planning process, from site appraisal to securing consents. You’ll contribute to development proposals and deliver innovative solutions to meet client objectives.

Degree backgrounds considered:  MSc or MA Town Planning and Urban Planning (RTPI accredited).

Locations available: Cambridge, Birmingham and Newcastle

Land Referencing - In our industry-leading Land team, the largest of its kind in the UK, you will support research and identification of landowners. You will assist in the negotiation to access land, create legal documentation for planning permission and provide support for the landowner engagement required to acquire land. You will work on projects throughout the UK and Ireland and your input will ensure that these projects gain permission to be constructed.  

• Degree backgrounds considered: Geography, Estates and Land Management.
• Locations: London, Cambridge, Birmingham, South West and Belfast

Digital Advisory - Our digital advisory experts work in tandem with subject matter experts across disciplines to help our clients leverage digital tools and data science to solve complex problems, optimise operations, expedite decarbonisation, and design resilient and sustainable infrastructure across the built and natural environment.

The Digital Advisory team are a team of Digital Experts. The team specialise in supporting clients, both public and private sector throughout the lifecycle of their projects, from inception through to delivery and ‘go live’ by providing expert Digital Advisory Services.

• Digital Advisory - Degree backgrounds considered: MSc Digital transformation, Management with Digital innovation, Software development, Geographic information science and Data Analytics.
• Location: London (September roles only)

Graduate Development Programme

Our Graduates told us the best part of being on the Graduate Development Programme is the support for their own personal development and large network available to them.

They also said they had the chance to work on a wide variety of projects enabling them to work closely with other disciplines, allowing them to gain a better understanding of their role on projects and how this enhances the schemes they are involved in. As well as the large pool of experts to guide them throughout their journey.

We have established relationships with professional institutions including but not all ICE, IStructE, IET, CIBSE, CIHT, CILT, IMechE, IChemE, CIWEM, RICS, RTPI, SocEnv & APM.  You will have the opportunity to select a technical mentor to help you on your journey, and to reward you for your efforts, (when you reach certain professional milestones, you’ll even get a bonus as a thank you and well done for your hard work). We are also able to support professional development with many other approved professional institutions that may not be included in this list.

Our 2-year Graduate Programme is designed to support personal career development and growth through a blended learning experience. The programme includes core business skills and career focused training, networking opportunities, professional registration mentoring and on-the-job experience. The development programme consists of four key streams illustrated below:

• 2 day in-person induction
• In person training days
• Technical role specific training
• Curated online content
• On-the-job experience
• Additional resources and activities

We also have a unique Professional Growth Network (PGN), which is a networking group run by early career professionals for ECP’s. It helps to grow your network of contacts across the business as well as providing you with opportunities for extra experience and to support you in achieving chartered status or other professional accreditations. 

You’ll have graduated with at least a 2:2 in a master’s or bachelor’s degree in a relevant subject for the role you are applying for.

• You'll be looking to start work in either April or September 2025 
• Have a passion for planning and consulting and or sustainable engineering solutions 
• An enthusiasm for creativity and a drive to solve problems
• You’ll want to inspire us, sharing new ideas you have
• In this team, you will be dealing with internal and external stakeholders and collaborating with colleagues and adapting to progressive project environments. 

Please be aware behavioural assessment results at WSP are valid for a period of 12 months, if you have completed an assessment within this timeframe and been unsuccessful, we will not be able to consider your application.

Early applications are recommended, and we reserve the right to close this vacancy prior to the advertised closing date.

How long does the process take?

You'll receive an email acknowledging receipt of your application within 5 days of submission. After reviewing your application, if we feel your background and skills are suitable, you will be sent through to the second stage in the process which is an online behavioural assessment.

If you are successful after completing the assessment, we will be work hard to match you to the most suitable roles in our business.

Most applications complete initial assessments and are progressed to the next stage, which is an interview day, within 8-10 weeks but it’s good to know that the whole process can last up to 12 weeks in total if you're an early applicant. We will aim to keep you informed throughout the time that your application is being considered however, due to the volume of applications received, we are not able to respond to individual requests for status updates.

Imagine a better future for you and a better future for us all.

Work on landmark projects around the world and embrace opportunities to make an even bigger impact in the communities you care about. What if you could do the best work of your life and create a legacy for yourself?

With us, you can. Apply today.