2025 Graduate Programme (UK) - Planning

In today’s world it’s important to work for a company that has clear purpose, giving back to communities and supporting what is truly important in the world.

When considering a career move its vital to work for a business that is aligned to your values and goals, a place where you can belong.

We are looking for graduates for our Planning and Development teams, 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.

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.

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 Stadum development
• HS2
• Hynet
• Network Rail
• United Utilities
• Scottish Power Energy Networks

RESPONSIBILITES AND REQUIREMENTS:

Our vision is to be recognised as the 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 and Engagements teams across the UK.

Development Planning - 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.

• Development Planning - Degree backgrounds considered: MEng Civil Engineering, MSc or MA Geography, MSc Transport Planning
• Locations: Various locations available in the North and South, including Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle. Guildford, Basingstoke, Southampton, Birmingham, Cardiff and Bristol.

Infrastructure Planning - As part of the largest UK team of Town Planners, you'll work on supporting securing consent for major infrastructure projects. From planning applications to appraisals, you'll collaborate with teams, attend meetings, and manage smaller projects. You'll be engaging with clients, statutory bodies, and public consultees, supporting business development and networking.

• Infrastructure Planning - Degree backgrounds considered: Town Planning.
• Locations: Manchester and Cardiff.

Planning Engagement - Our Engagement team, support our clients by helping them demonstrate they've engaged with the community and relevant stakeholders, shared their development and future plans and listened to feedback from the community, to inform the development of their schemes. Working in this team you will be creating communications to help stakeholders understand projects. You’ll assist with the organisation of events, run surveys, and present feedback, helping projects develop responsibly.

• Planning Engagement - Degree backgrounds considered: Geography, History, politics or similar.
• Locations: London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Planning Consultancy - 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: Town Planning and Urban Planning (RTPI accredited).
• Locations: Manchester, Liverpool, London, Birmingham and Leeds.

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.

• Land Referencing - Degree backgrounds considered: Geography, Estates and Land Management.
• Locations: London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow.

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.

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA:

You’ll be graduating in 2025 or have recently 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. To assist you in finding potential areas of the business that are relevant to you. Please explore our degree search tool on our graduate website.

• Candidates must complete the application form in full answering all specific questions. This requirement applies to all candidates, inclusive of their background. Successful completion of this stage is mandatory. Candidates who pass this initial stage, will then be required to complete an online behavioural assessment. Both the application form and the behavioural assessment are essential parts of the early careers recruitment process.
• You'll be looking to start work in either April or September 2025 and will ideally have less than 15 months relevant experience.
• You’ll have a passion for Environmental Consulting and/or sustainable engineering solutions
• You will have a creativity to solve problems
• You’ll want to stretch and inspire us, sharing new ideas you have
• You’ll have excellent interpersonal skills
• You’ll have the ability to work effectively in a team, collaborating with colleagues and adapting to progressive project environments.
• You’ll have the ability to manage your own time and plan your workload effectively

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.