Urban Design, Planning and Development

BA (Hons)

UCAS code: KK42

Start dates: September 2025 / September 2026

Full time: 3 years

Part time: 6 years

Location: Headington

School(s): School of the Built Environment

Find a course

Overview

Create cities for the future. Explore urban design, planning and development as you find creative and innovative ideas that address the challenges of today’s society.

Our course includes live projects from day 1 to equip you for a career in the industry. You’ll find out what being a working professional is like and gain experience of interpreting a brief, presenting to clients and getting feedback.

By following our project-based modules, you’ll be considering the true impact of your design in the real world. You’ll learn how to masterplan and consider how your proposals impact the development or the regeneration of an area and its environmental, social and economic sustainability. By graduation, you’ll have worked for at least 5 different clients through our live projects and developed a range of skills – even film making.

You’ll get a thorough grounding in theoretical knowledge thanks to the strong research background of our teaching staff. Plus, the portfolio which we help you develop along the course will impress future employers with the opportunities you’ve been engaged with.

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Why Oxford Brookes University?

  • Top 20 in the UK
    Urban Design, Planning and Development is ranked 13th in the Guardian Construction, Surveying and Planning subject league ranking 2025.
  • Study trip overseas
    Explore with our international study trip to places like the Netherlands, Portugal or Ireland. Visit field studios, examine case studies or explore sites in the UK.
  • Digital portfolio and Practical live projects
    Develop an online portfolio from your first project onwards and gain experience of real-world assignments so you can highlight the clients you’ve worked for. A great way to impress future employers.
  • Visiting speakers
    Listen to our high-profile guest speakers with a wide range of expertise from open space design, ecology or sustainable mobility.  
  • Proactive student society
    Get involved with our lively student society who not only put on engaging social events but also have direct input into the curriculum. Visit the UrbOx Instagram page.
  • Learn a language

    Our university-wide language programme is available to full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students on many of our courses, and can be taken as a credit on some courses.

  • Study abroad

    You may be able to go on a European or international study exchange while you are at Brookes. Most exchanges take place in the second year. Although we will help as much as we can with your plans, ultimately you are responsible for organising and funding this study abroad.

  • Accreditation(s)

    Accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). Partially accredited (UG spatial) by RTPI. Full RTPI accreditation available when combined with PG Diploma Spatial Planning or any full or partially (specialist) RTPI accredited PG programme

    • Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
    • The Royal Town Planning Institute

Course details

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Study modules

Teaching for this course takes place face to face and you can expect around 12 hours of contact time per week. In addition to this, you should also anticipate a workload of 1,200 hours per year. Teaching usually takes place Monday to Friday, between 9.00am and 6.00pm.

Contact hours involve activities such as lectures, seminars, practicals, assessments, and academic advising sessions. These hours differ by year of study and typically increase significantly during placements or other types of work-based learning.

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Please note: As our courses are reviewed regularly as part of our quality assurance framework, the modules you can choose from may vary from those shown here. The structure of the course may also mean some modules are not available to you.

Careers

The breadth of our curriculum enables you to work in any of the 3 areas – urban design, planning or development. You could follow a career in the public sector with local authorities or with private developers and consultancies.

Previous graduates have found jobs with companies such as DLA, Savills, AECOM and the UK government.
Due to our proactive collaboration with industry, you’ll have gained valuable experience throughout the course and developed skills sought after by employers. This means you’ll be able to apply for a range of positions in the UK or internationally in:   

  • charities 
  • NGOs
  • local communities
  • research centres
  • government institutions
  • educational establishments.

Some students go on to postgraduate study in subjects such as urban design planning or heritage conservation.

Student profiles

Our Staff

Dr Graham Wood

Graham's teaching interests include environmental assessment and management; GIS and information technology in environmental planning and management; environmental decision-making; and research methods.

Read more about Graham

Entry requirements

Wherever possible we make our conditional offers using the UCAS Tariff. The combination of A-level grades listed here would be just one way of achieving the UCAS Tariff points for this course.

Standard offer

UCAS Tariff Points: 104

A Level: BCC

IB Points: 29

BTEC: DMM

Contextual offer

UCAS Tariff Points: 88

A Level: CCD

IB Points: 27

BTEC: MMM

Further offer details

We welcome applications from candidates with alternative qualifications, and from mature students.

International qualifications and equivalences

Tuition fees

Please see the fees note
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Questions about fees?

Contact Student Finance on:

Tuition fees

2024 / 25
Home (UK) full time
£9,250

Home (UK) part time
£1,155 per single module

International full time
£15,950

2025 / 26
Home (UK) full time
£9,535

Home (UK) part time
£1,190 per single module

International full time
£16,750

Questions about fees?

Contact Student Finance on:

+44 (0)1865 534400

financefees@brookes.ac.uk

Please note, tuition fees for Home students may increase in subsequent years both for new and continuing students in line with an inflationary amount determined by government. Oxford Brookes University intends to maintain its fees for new and returning Home students at the maximum permitted level.

For further information please see our 2025-26 tuition fees FAQs.

Tuition fees for International students may increase in subsequent years both for new and continuing students.

The following factors will be taken into account by the University when it is setting the annual fees: inflationary measures such as the retail price indices, projected increases in University costs, changes in the level of funding received from Government sources, admissions statistics and access considerations including the availability of student support. 

How and when to pay

Tuition fee instalments for the semester are due by the Monday of week 1 of each semester. Students are not liable for full fees for that semester if they leave before week 4. If the leaving date is after week 4, full fees for the semester are payable.

  • For information on payment methods please see our Make a Payment page.
  • For information about refunds please visit our Refund policy page

Additional costs

Please be aware that some courses will involve some additional costs that are not covered by your fees. Specific additional costs for this course are detailed below.

Information from Discover Uni

Full-time study

Part-time study

Programme changes:
On rare occasions we may need to make changes to our course programmes after they have been published on the website. For more information, please visit our changes to programmes page.