APA/AICP Planners Salary Survey

The American Planning Association and its professional institute, the American Institute of Certified Planners, seek to promote the success of planners and the organizations they work for. To that end, periodic surveys of compensation in the profession have been conducted and reported to the membership; the latest of these were published in 2004 and 2006.

A Closer Look at the Salary Survey

By Monica Groh
Manager of Professional Development and AICP

The APA/AICP Planners Salary Survey conducted in 2008 highlights the latest factors influencing the compensation of the planning profession and updates surveys from 2004 and 2006. The survey's conclusions and observations are of interest in evaluating the current and future nature of the planning profession.

The median salary for planners rose from $63,000 in 2006 to $70,000 in 2008 and compares very favorably to the core rate of inflation. Salaries can vary widely, however, and some of the characteristics related to predicting planning compensation include location, employer, age, education experience, specialization, gender, and AICP membership.

Fifty-one percent of planners who responded to the survey were certified through the Institute as either AICP (50 percent) or FAICP (1 percent). The survey analysis compared the salaries of AICP members and non-members. On average, AICP members make $18,000 more than non-members. This figure was $17,000 in 2006 and $13,000 in 2004.

The strongest correlation to salary is experience. When results are controlled for experience, the salary margin narrows but AICP members still earn higher wages. This finding may suggest that AICP members have more experience on average than non-members. (The median planner has been in the planning field for 14 years.) It also may point toward other qualifications or characteristics of AICP members that raise their compensation levels as compared to non-members. Nonetheless, the finding indicates that, over time, AICP members will accumulate significantly higher earnings than non-members.

Other notable factors affecting planning salaries are the nature of the employer and the location of employment. Public agencies make up the majority of employers at 67 percent, while 25 percent of planners work for private consulting firms, and 8 percent work elsewhere. Law firms and development firms pay the most. Sixty-three percent of planners work in cities, 21 percent in suburbs, 11 percent in small towns, and 3 percent in rural areas. The proportion working in suburbs has dropped one point in each survey since 2004, although this is not statistically significant.

While three times as many planners are located in cities than in suburbs, the salaries for suburban and urban employment are fairly equal. Suburban planners have a small edge with a median salary of $73,000 (as compared to the overall $70,000 median). The top three states for median salary — Washington D.C. (considered a state for the purposes of this survey), California, and New Jersey — held the same positions in 2006. In 2008, the top seven metro areas for median salary are in these states. Washington's place at the top for median salary may be because it comprises a solely urban area.

Among planners, issues of representation and compensation across gender, race, heritage, and ethnicity continue to be hot topics. Planning is still a predominantly white profession. Ninety percent of survey respondents self-identified as white, 4 percent as Black/African American (up from 3 percent in 2006), 4 percent as Asian/Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and 2 percent as "other." Four percent who responded said their heritage was Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino (up from 3 percent in 2006). The survey found that although whites have a disproportionately high level of representation within the planning field, race does not make a statistically significant contribution to predicting mean salary when the effects of other significant variables are controlled.

However, there is correlation between gender and salary, and women are statistically underrepresented in the planning profession. While the percentage of females in planning increased from 34 percent in 2004 to 37 percent in 2006, the percentage has remained relatively stable in the last two years. The gender gap in earnings has changed slightly in the past couple of years, but not for the better. On average, female planners earn 85 cents for every dollar earned by male planners, compared with 88 cents/dollar in 2006. Interestingly, the gender salary gap grows with increasing experience, and gender inequality becomes more significant in the later years of a planning career. Although this may mark a trend towards more gender-equitable pay among younger planners, it also may signal the need for increased attention to ensure equitable pay scales in advanced planning positions.

Finally, specializations within the planning profession proved to be fairly profitable in general. Virtually all respondents (96 percent in 2008, up from 95 percent in 2006) indicated one or more specializations. Having a specialization in and of itself is wage-favorable, and only two of the most common specializations — preservation/land use and code enforcement — afford median salaries below the general median. Planning management, budget, and finance is the most lucrative specialization, with a median salary of $83,000. Twenty-five percent of planners practicing this specialty earn $105,000 or more.

The biennial APA/AICP Planners Salary Survey is a valuable tool for tracking the profession's trends and characteristics because of the wide range of variables it makes available for cross-tabulation and analysis. Results continue to confirm that AICP members earn a higher median salary than non-members — an important consideration for planners considering certification and an affirmation of AICP members' efforts to become and remain certified. The survey results tell us which geographic areas, specializations, and employment locations offer higher salaries, and indicate the range of salaries planners can expect given specific variables. Some of the results — such as the relationship between greater experience and higher salary — are fairly obvious while others, like the profession's racial and ethnic composition and increasing gender inequality vis-a-vis salary, are not.

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