Campus Planner, Strategy & Analytics

DLR Group is seeking a Campus Planner focusing on space strategy and analytics to join our national Campus Planning Team within our Higher Education practice. 

Position Summary

This role sits at the intersection of campus planning, facilities strategy, data analytics, and design. We are looking for a curious, systems-oriented thinker who can take complex quantitative and qualitative information and turn it into a compelling story that helps colleges and universities make better decisions about their campuses. 

You will work alongside campus planners, architects, designers, and institutional leaders to understand existing facilities, incorporate non-facilities data sources, identify emerging needs, test future scenarios, and translate those findings into actionable planning strategies. The right person may come from an AEC consulting environment, directly from a college or university, or bring a different perspective. 

This is not a traditional data analyst position. Data is one of the tools you will use to uncover insights, influence planning decisions, and connect institutional priorities to the physical campus. 

What You Will Do 

• Partner with DLR Group's national Campus Planning Team and higher education clients to connect institutional strategy, academic priorities, facilities data, and physical space.  

• Analyze quantitative and qualitative information including space inventories, utilization, enrollment, scheduling, facilities conditions, stakeholder input, and institutional trends.  

• Translate complex data into clear visualizations, narratives, scenarios, and recommendations that clients can understand and act upon.  

• Identify patterns across buildings, departments, programs, and campus systems to help institutions understand where they have opportunities, constraints, and unmet space needs.  

• Contribute to campus master plans, facility plans, programming studies, space utilization studies, and other strategic planning engagements.  

• Manage data validation and visualization processes to ensure high-quality deliverables that meet client needs.  

• Facilitate conversations with institutional stakeholders to understand not only what the data says, but why it matters.  

• Develop strategies and recommendations related to space utilization, allocation, policies, standards, and future facility needs.  

• Work alongside architects and interior designers to translate planning findings into physical design and programming solutions.  

• Build and improve processes, tools, dashboards, and methodologies that make our campus planning analysis more efficient, accurate, and insightful.  

• Create presentations, reports, and reference materials that combine quantitative data with qualitative insights and industry best practices.  

• Contribute to the continued evolution of DLR Group's capabilities around space analytics, facility strategy, data visualization, and digital planning tools.  

Required Qualifications 

• Bachelor's degree in planning, architecture, facilities management, data analytics, business, social sciences, engineering, or another relevant field.  

• Strong systems-thinking skills and an ability to understand how people, programs, policies, facilities, and institutional priorities interact.  

• Experience using data to identify patterns, develop insights, and communicate a compelling story.  

• Strong Excel skills and experience working with data visualization or business intelligence tools such as Power BI, Tableau, or similar platforms.  

• Experience organizing, transforming, or working with complex datasets; experience with Power Query or similar tools is a plus.  

• Strong written, verbal, graphic, and presentation skills.  

• Ability to communicate analytical findings effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.  

• Curiosity and a desire to understand the underlying reasons behind the data rather than simply report results.  

• Ability to collaborate across disciplines and manage multiple priorities within a national team.  

• Ability and willingness to travel and work with clients across the United States.  

• Must be eligible to work in the United States without sponsorship.  

Preferred Qualifications 

• Experience within an architecture, engineering, planning, real estate, or other professional consulting environment, or experience working within a college or university.  

• Experience in campus planning, facilities planning, space planning, space management, institutional planning, academic planning, or facilities management.  

• Familiarity with higher education organizational structures, academic programs, scheduling, enrollment, research, student life, or institutional decision-making.  

• Experience with CAFM/IWMS or facilities management systems and the data associated with buildings, rooms, occupancy, assets, or space inventories.  

• Experience developing or influencing policies, standards, guidelines, or institutional processes, especially those related to space management.  

• Experience connecting data to policy or processes and making changes that influence outcomes.  

• Experience with coding, database tools, GIS, data automation, or digital tool development.  

• Experience with Adobe Creative Suite or other planning/graphic communication tools.  

• Master's degree or multidisciplinary background.