Tuesday, July 07, 2026
Langara's 12-month post-degree diploma in Applied Planning builds job-ready community planners. Learn GIS, zoning, public engagement, and more.
Are you interested in a career that helps contribute to more livable communities and help shape the spaces we live in; and you already have a bachelor's degree? The question is what to do with it.
Community planning may be the answer, but getting hired requires more than academic foundations alone. It takes applied, employment-ready skills taught by instructors who work in the planning field.
snəw̓eyəɬ leləm Langara College's Post-Degree Diploma in Applied Planning provides the job-ready skills needed to get a job in the planning.
An in-demand career
British Columbia needs planners. A lot of them. Provincial housing legislation continues to press municipalities to better accommodate housing supply. Many municipalities are subject to housing target orders, and planning departments across the province are working through those mandates with staffing levels that haven't kept pace.
The numbers reflect the demand: WorkBC projects 1,210 job openings for land use planners in B.C. between 2025 and 2035, and classifies the occupation as high-opportunity, with average annual earnings at $83,560.
Planning plays out across a wide range of roles, it isn’t one job, it’s an entire field. The most direct entry point is municipal and community planning. Cities, towns, and regional districts are actively hiring to manage land use applications, review development proposals, and implement new provincial housing legislation. This is where the current shortage is most acute.
Development planning, geographic information systems (GIS) analysis, and planning policy work sit alongside that, often within the same organizations. Beyond municipal government, private consultancies, regional governments, the BC Public Service, and First Nations governments all employ planning graduates.
The profession intersects nearly every area of community building and public life. The roles are there and the timing is good.
Why Langara's program works
This program doesn't treat planning as an academic exercise. It treats it as a profession —this isn’t planning theory, it’s planning practice.
"We teach planning the way it's actually practised," says Erica Tiffany, program co-ordinator of Applied Planning. "Students finish this program job-ready. Not theoretically prepared, but actually ready to work."
The Applied Planning curriculum covers land use analysis, zoning bylaw interpretation, planning legislation, development proforma drafting, and public engagement facilitation; skills built with enough depth to apply from day one. Students also work with GIS and 3D modelling software, AutoCAD, data analysis tools and other mapping tools that modern planning offices rely on.
"GIS and 3D modelling have fundamentally changed what planning can accomplish," says Tiffany. "We want graduates who can contribute to those conversations immediately, not spend their first year catching up on software."
The program also mirrors how planning actually operates: team-based, collaborative, and applied. The centrepiece is a major project completed in collaboration with a professional mentor in the field.
"Students aren't solving hypothetical problems," Tiffany explains. "They're working with someone who does this for a living, on challenges that reflect what's actually happening in the profession right now."
Who should apply?
The Post-Degree Diploma in Applied Planning is for people who hold an undergraduate degree, most often in geography or a related field, and want practical training to enter the profession. It's equally well-suited for professionals from adjacent fields, such as engineering, architecture, environmental consulting or real estate, who want to work more effectively in planning or shift their careers toward it.
"This program creates a genuine bridge," says Tiffany. "People arrive from other fields and leave able to either work in planning or apply planning thinking more meaningfully in their current work."
The entire program can be completed in 12 months: practical for those who can't commit to a longer graduate program and a strong foundation for those who want applied planning skills before pursuing a master's in planning.
Most graduates move directly into the workforce, in communities from Vancouver to Prince George to Victoria. Others use the diploma as a stepping stone into graduate school.
Either way, the goal is the same: graduate ready to contribute on day one. That's what Langara College's Post-Degree Diploma in Applied Planning is built to deliver.
Get started
Ready to turn your degree into practical planning skills? Learn more about Langara’s Post-Degree Diploma in Applied Planning.
