Traditional employers of planning graduates in the public and private sectors have been faced with significant changes in the way the system is to be operated at a time of reduced resources and business.
With the changing fortunes of the economy and cuts in public expenditure there has been a decline in job opportunities for new planning graduates over the past few years. This contrasts with the situation during the mid to late 2000s when the planning sector experienced a shortage of labour and central government and others took action to increase the supply of planners (Durning 2007 Durning and Glasson 2007 House of Commons CLG Committee 2008 McLoughlin 2008).
The recent difficulties faced by planning graduates in securing professional planning employment has given prominence to the issue of graduate employability skills on the agendas of planning schools and the Royal Town Planning Institute (McClelland 2012 Parkes 2011 Stewart and Burbridge 2010 Thomas 2011). Thomas (2011) considers that employability can be understood as a complex outcome of individual attributes personal circumstances and labour market conditions. He argues that as the labour market is not under the control of the graduate job-seeker this makes it all the more important that the individual gains the greatest possible advantage from those factors which can be developed through their own action.
