Town Planner

This is a fantastic opportunity for a skilled Town Planner to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of M&S’s UK store estate. As a key planning expert, you’ll lead the coordination and delivery of planning strategies that support our Store Rotation and wider UK Property Strategy. Working across a variety of high-profile retail projects, you’ll manage planning applications from concept through to consent—liaising with internal teams and external consultants to drive efficient, commercially sound outcomes. You’ll bring RTPI expertise, a strong understanding of local and national planning policy, and a proactive approach to identifying and managing planning risk. If you’re passionate about town planning and excited by the fast-paced world of retail development, this is your chance to make a tangible impact on the high street.

Being a part of M&S is exactly that – playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day. We’re an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever-evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing exceptional quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.

Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special:

• After completing your probationary period, you’ll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.
• Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days!
• Discretionary bonus schemes awarded based on how you achieve your personal objectives and our performance as a business.
• A generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.
• A dedicated welcome to our teams with a tailored induction and a wide range of training programmes to develop your skills.
• Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices portal to maximise your financial and personal wellbeing.
• Industry-leading parental, adoption and neonatal policies, providing support and flexibility for your family.
• Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support for all colleagues including access to our 24/7 Virtual GP and PAM Assist to support you and your family.
• A charity volunteer day to support a charity or cause you’re passionate about through a dedicated day away from work.

Collaborative and strategic engagement with internal partners in Acquisitions, Estates, Asset Management, Design and Store Planning, Programme and Procurement, Construction, HR, Comms and Legal to drive acceleration within the Store Rotation and UK Property Strategy. Undertaking asset management, estates management and new store planning activity across the UK. Responsibility for leading the planning process, coordination of internal and external collaborators within this. Obtaining and comparing fee rates and best value of consultants, and appointment and management thereafter. Driving standard process across the external and internal project team to obtain operationally acceptable planning consents for the blueprint store delivery. Driving consistency and best practice in management of the planning process and calling out project and programme risk early.

A member of The Royal Town Planning Institute. Have a degree related to Town Planning. Have extensive experience performing at a similar level. A Strong communicator giving programme updates to Head of Planning, Programme Team and other relevant stakeholders. Experience in preparing and coordinating submissions of reps to local planning policy reviews with the aim to improve planning policy for M&S UK property strategy.

We’re ambitious about the future of retail. We’re innovating, disrupting, and leading the way into a more inspiring, digital era. It’s an exciting time to be part of M&S. To support us on our journey, we’re building inclusive, diverse teams where everyone can be themselves, do their best work, and make change happen. We support each other and succeed together. Don’t worry if you don’t meet every single requirement of the job description. It’s more of a guide to what’s possible within the role. If you’re passionate, ready to work hard, and think the role feels right for you, we’d love to hear from you.