Principal Planning Officer

Key Information

• Salary is £56,528 per annum (which includes a recruitment allowance of £7,246.00 per annum payable for up to 3 years)
• Reporting to the Area Manager, Development Management
• Permanent position, 37 hours per week
• Flexible and Hybrid working (1-2 days per week in the office)
• Generous pension scheme and 30 days’ annual leave
• Extensive CPD and peer support
• Opportunity to work on a wide range of interesting projects, offering unique opportunities to develop your experience and skills.

As a Principal Officer you’ll be responsible for assessing and determining a range of major applications including Residential, Commercial, and allocated sites. You’ll also manage Planning Performance Agreements to provide for the 18,000 homes allocated in the Local Plan.

You’ll also manage a small team of Planners and Senior Planners (4-7 people) providing support through one‑to‑one and team meetings. Within each area of Somerset there are 2-3 Principal Officers enabling peer support.

The scale of the authority is significant, as is the skill set of the existing team and the variety of surrounding development management experience.

Within Somerset we have a huge breadth of work, and plenty of interesting projects. These currently include:

• Local Development Orders
• Development Consent Orders
• Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects
• Major residential and Commercial developments
• Our Emerging Local Plan

We also have a successful history of gaining Levelling up and Homes England funding - which means there will be a range of new things to work on in the coming years as we deliver key community facilities, infrastructure and public realm improvements – so you’ll have a unique opportunity to develop your experience and skills.

Continue to shape our service as a new authority and we’re not sitting still. If you relish opportunities to inform, influence and streamline you could be a key part of the evolution of Planning in this Authority.

We are looking for qualified planners, with experience of determining and negotiating on complex caseloads within a Local Authority environment. You would need to be or be eligible to become a Chartered Planner.

For this role, it would be ideal if you had some management experience but if you’re a Senior Planner and feel ready to step up, we’ll support and help develop you into a Principal role.

We’re proud to be here for the people of Somerset. And that means everyone in Somerset. An important part of this is ensuring that we are as diverse and inclusive as the people and communities we serve.

We welcome applications from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences to enrich our team. You can always contact the hiring manager for a chat if there’s anything you want to talk about before you apply.

We are proud to offer an environment that is supportive and rewarding, working as part of a team who are passionate about the work they do to improve the lives of people in Somerset.

We offer great training and development opportunities, with supportive management. As well as this, we have some fantastic employee benefits available:

• We promote a healthy work‑life balance and offer flexible working arrangements wherever possible, including working from home.
• Generous annual leave allowance, with the opportunity to purchase additional leave.
• Staff discounts in gyms.
• Employee Assistance for the times you may need some support and a variety of employee wellbeing services.
• Auto enrolment onto our generous Pension Scheme and optional pension enhancement through our Additional Voluntary Contribution scheme.
• A Flexible Benefits Scheme via salary sacrifice to obtain a cycle for work and health screenings.
• My Staff Shop offering discounts in shops, online shopping, restaurants, cinema tickets, insurance benefits and more.

Salary is £56,528 per annum (which includes a recruitment allowance of £7,246.00 per annum payable for up to 3 years).

For an informal chat about the role, you can contact Dawn DeVries via email at  or Zac Ellwood via email at

When completing your application/CV please provide your full employment history and ensure that any gaps in employment are explained. Please start with your current or most recent employment.

If you have everything you need, just hit the apply button. We can’t wait to hear from you.