Urban and Regional Planners

High pay & lowrisk
Minimal Risk
Low High

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Occupation snapshot

What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
7.4/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

Risk & user votes

Calculated automation risk

18% (Minimal Risk)

Minimal Risk (0-20%): This occupation appears difficult to replace end-to-end with current or near-future automation, including AI software and robotics. Roles in this range usually depend on human judgement, creativity, care, leadership, specialist expertise, or adapting to messy real-world situations. AI and machines may still change parts of the work, but the occupation is likely to remain a distinct human role.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Human strengths important in this job

These are human abilities and work contexts that are important in this occupation. They may help explain why parts of the role are harder to replace end-to-end, but they are not the only inputs into the automation score.

Thinking creatively

Very important
Why this matters
Coming up with original ideas and designs—creating new concepts, products, systems, or artistic work. This kind of open-ended invention and taste-based judgment is harder to automate end-to-end than routine, rule-based tasks.
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Decision-making and problem solving

Very important
Why this matters
Analyze information, weigh tradeoffs, and choose the best solution—especially when situations are ambiguous, high-stakes, or have real-world consequences.
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Coordinating others’ work

Very important
Why this matters
Bringing people together, assigning tasks, and keeping a group aligned so work gets done.
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Communicating with people outside the organization

Very important
Why this matters
Represents the organization to customers, the public, or government—handling questions, concerns, and relationship-building through conversations, writing, calls, or email.
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Developing objectives and strategies

Very important
Why this matters
Sets long-term goals and chooses strategies and actions to reach them, weighing tradeoffs and adapting plans as conditions change.
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Show 5 more strengths

Social perceptiveness

Quite important
Why this matters
Noticing others’ emotions and reactions in the moment and adjusting what you say or do based on why they’re responding that way.
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Negotiation

Quite important
Why this matters
Bringing people together to reconcile differences, trade off priorities, and reach agreements—work that depends on trust, persuasion, and reading the situation.
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Coaching and developing others

Quite important
Why this matters
Helps people learn and improve through coaching, mentoring, and feedback. This relies on trust, motivation, and adapting guidance to each person—work that’s hard to replace end-to-end with automation.
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Active learning

Quite important
Why this matters
Keeps learning from new information and applying it to make better decisions now and in the future, especially when situations change.
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Operations analysis

Quite important
Why this matters
Figure out what people need and what a product must do, then translate those requirements into a workable design.
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What users think

Based on 290 votes

25% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted there's a low chance this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 18% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Urban and Regional Planners will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

Based on user votes over time

View sentiment trend

How opinions have changed over time

Pay & outlook

Wages

High paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Urban and Regional Planners was $83,720 ($40 per hour).

The median annual wage for Urban and Regional Planners was 69.1% higher than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.

View wage trend

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Growth

Moderate growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Urban and Regional Planners' job openings is expected to rise 3.4% by 2034

View employment trend

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Volume

Moderate range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 43,040 people employed as 'Urban and Regional Planners' within the United States.

This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 3 thousand people are employed as 'Urban and Regional Planners'.

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What people are saying (12)

Leave a comment
viisaus (Low)
05 Jun 2026 18:30
because i think AI haven’t had the capability to analyze the complexity of urban engineering (not in the near future) and I think they also haven’t had the capacity to communicate effectively with other e.g. stakeholders, your supervisor, etc. to make your urban plan works in real life.
Stephen (Low)
10 May 2026 14:09
It require skills of different perspectives. The rapid urban development of LDCs may benefits the job
Joshua Park (Low)
11 Apr 2026 23:46
A lot of (government) urban planning roles involve interaction with community members, which I don't think AI could replace easily. In terms of office work though, I do think AI could do a lot of the work urban planners do
Hilary (Highly likely)
07 Aug 2025 15:44
Much of the work of planning housing developments, communities, cities, neighborhoods, and new business districts will likely be able to be done by automated GIS routines such as classification, network analyst. AI might be BETTER at accounting for things like slope analysis for water shed impact/flood prevention. Humans might be better at the repurposing of historic districts and in-fill development and the aesthetic touch, but that's about it.
CJ (Moderate)
27 Feb 2024 14:07
Increased number of planners using Ai to write reports and research but full automation is unlikely
Anonymous (Uncertain)
23 Oct 2023 09:31
AI starting to take over elements of consenting, apparently
Zeke (No chance)
09 Jun 2023 16:17
Until the digital divide in municipalities is erased, humans will always be needed for Urban & Regional Planning. AI could be utilized to make Planning easier, but it won’t fully dissolve the need for humans as Planners.
Joseph Oladimeji (Low)
31 Oct 2022 05:49
Because it requires human negotiations and social dimensions.
BibirMengkeroet (Uncertain)
13 Sep 2022 12:43
I'm currently a geography student. Yes, I also learn urban planning, and it's scary to realize that anything I've learned could also be done by AI.

For instance, AI could potentially create a better city plan than a human, just by using real-time GIS data. This data could be acquired from CCTVs across the city using object recognition.

However, more detailed surveys are still required, and this job is centralized. People don't build their own cities, except in Cities Skylines. So, I think AI would assist city planners, but not fully replace them, at least not yet.
DW (Moderate)
22 Jun 2022 15:12
Smaller counties are currently way behind the curve on automation.

AI will allow for huge reductions in workload related to paperwork and processes that are slow and redundant. It will also improve inefficient in-person communication.
Josh (No chance)
25 May 2022 03:00
Because there are stakeholders who will try to hold arguments against you in unpredictable ways, they might just smack the robots when they get triggered.

Anything can happen, and mistakes in urban planning using AI can be incredibly devastating. This can be likened to a highway construction fiasco with pseudoscience calculations and appeals to popularity or authority.

Reality can be very messy when AI can meet up, made even worse by human errors.
Ryan (No chance)
03 Dec 2021 17:00
Required knowledge, critical thinking, and abstract thought, as well as the ability to communicate personally with individuals.
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Job description

Develop comprehensive plans and programs for use of land and physical facilities of jurisdictions, such as towns, cities, counties, and metropolitan areas.

O*NET-SOC code: 19-3051.00