Strong Start

Planners are vital to shaping the communities we live in, by assisting to create vibrant and liveable cities, towns and regions for people to enjoy.

The department works with industry, local government and the private sector to support a skilled planning workforce in NSW. This workforce is critical to ensuring our NSW planning system is effective, efficient and delivering good outcomes for communities.

Planning has not been immune to the skills shortage being felt across the country. The following initiatives aims to address this shortage connecting students with jobs, and councils with much-needed planners, particularly in our regional areas.

To continue giving a strong start to our new generation of planners, in May 2023, we launched a council cadetship program to directly address NSW councils’ planning workforce shortages and support them to employ new locally based planning cadets.

The program includes $1.85 million in grant funding and ongoing end-to-end support to:

• encourage councils to onboard additional cadet planners and develop them into more senior roles
• grow more planners in NSW councils, particularly in regional areas where the planning skills shortage is most severe
• help planning graduates gain practical work experience while increasing the capacity of council planning teams.

From 19 May until 9 June 2023, councils were invited to apply for grants of $25,000 to fund planning cadets’ university tuition. We received stronger than anticipated interest with applications exceeding available grants. In response to this we expanded the program to allow all 74 councils that applied to receive one grant.

For more information about our Strong Start Cadetship program:

• read the program guidelines (PDF, 977 KB)
• read the information pack for councils participating in the program (PDF, 1.47 MB)
• email the team at [email protected]

To facilitate a strong start to our next generation of planners, in February 2023 we launched our first mentoring program open to any student or graduate planner working at a council in NSW.

Students and graduates were paired with experienced planners at the department, who share knowledge and expertise, provide coaching, expand professional networks, and support professional development. The program offers personal support when starting out in your career.

What’s happening now

The mentoring program is now underway, with 60 mentees from 48 councils taking part until December 2023.

All mentees have now been matched with a suitable mentor and started their mentoring journey, which includes:

• completing the Art of Mentoring online training
• attending 3 MS Teams webinar events: program launch, mid-program review, program close
• establishing a timetable for one-on-one meetings by working with their paired mentoring partner
• completing surveys throughout the program to ensure all mentees get what they need from the program.

For more information about our Strong Start mentoring program:

• read this Strong Start information pack (PDF, 1.1 MB)
• email the team at [email protected]

Students and graduates can launch their careers by discovering a wide range of job opportunities on the Planning Institute of Australia’s Employment Directory.

We have partnered with the Planning Institute of Australia to create a new field “Student/Graduate Employment” on the employment directory to make it quicker and easier to discover relevant positions in local and state government, and the private sector.

Find your next job opportunity on the employment directory.

To help councils fill planner job vacancies, we are waiving the cost for all NSW councils to post an unlimited number of student or graduate planner jobs on the employment directory in 2023.

Councils can advertise student or graduate jobs for free. Simply download this Advertising Request form (PDF, 103 KB) and email it to [email protected]