Explore Urban Studies at UCL

Located on UCL's Bloomsbury campus, you will engage with a broad range of urban expertise from the UCL Urban Lab. This includes fields such as Geography, English, Engineering, Urban Planning, and the latest developments in Architectural History.

You will think carefully and critically about the latest international, comparative and historically informed perspectives on cities and urbanisation.

You will use London as a key laboratory to introduce and explore a series of interconnected critical themes within Urban Studies.

View our London field-trip map

Choose optional modules that match your interests from a wide range of options across different UCL Departments.

You will develop the knowledge and skills needed for careers in academia, public and private research, and other professional fields. These are fields where an advanced understanding of cities and urban change is essential. 

Jennifer is Chair of Human Geography at UCL. Her research focuses on urban geography and urban studies, with particular emphasis on postcolonial and comparative approaches to understanding cities across the globe. She is internationally recognised for her work on comparative urbanism, African urbanisation, and the politics of large-scale urban development. Her expertise spans urban theory, global urbanism, urban policy, and transnational urban processes, with a strong focus on cities in Africa and the Global South.

See Professor Robinson’s UCL Profile

Ayona is Professor of Human Geography at UCL. Her research focuses on postcolonial urbanism, digital urban transformations and feminist urban futures, with particular emphasis on smart cities, gender, and citizenship in the Global South. She is internationally recognised for pioneering work on digital urbanism and the politics of technology-driven urban development, using participatory, visual and co-produced research methods with grassroots communities. Her expertise spans smart cities, digital governance, feminist methodologies and urban inequalities, particularly in rapidly transforming cities in South Asia and beyond.

See Professor Datta’s UCL Profile

Rory is Associate Professor of Geography at UCL. His research examines the relationships between housing systems, neighbourhood change and life-course dynamics, with a particular focus on residential mobility, migration and inequality. He has extensive expertise in quantitative and longitudinal research methods, using large-scale social surveys and household panel data to analyse how housing and urban policies shape everyday lives across cities and regions.

See Dr Coulter’s UCL Profile

Alan is Professor of Human Geography at UCL. His research focuses on urban life and social infrastructure, exploring how everyday practices, sociality and public spaces shape the experience of cities. He is internationally recognised for qualitative and ethnographic research on urban cultures, mobility and the public life of cities, with particular expertise in social infrastructure, urban sociality and the cultural dynamics of global cities.

See Professor Latham’s UCL Profile

Fabien is Lecturer in Urban and Development Geography at UCL. His research explores how cities are made and sustained in contexts of inequality, violence and marginalisation, with a particular focus on peace, conflict and everyday urban life at the margins. He has expertise in political and postcolonial urban geographies, urban technologies and power, and the circulation of radical and anti-violence perspectives across cities, particularly within the Black Atlantic.

See Dr Cante’s UCL Profile

• Dr Tatiana Thieme - Department of Geography
• Professor Camillo Boano - Development Planning Unit
• Dr Ellie Cosgrave - STEaPP
• Mr Michael Edwards - Bartlett School of Planning
• Dr Michal Murawski - School of Slavic and Eastern European Studies
• Dr Rafael Schacter - Department of Anthropology
• Professor Ben Campkin - Bartlett School of Architecture

MSc Urban Studies is a central training programme for the Urban Studies, Planning and Spatial Science pathway of the UBEL ESRC DTP. For more information, visit the UBEL page. There are opportunities for 1+3 PhD awards, which includes MSc Urban Studies study. You will need to develop a proposal by November, ahead of the intended start in September.

Our alumni have successfully pursued careers in municipal and local government, urban political organisations, art consultancies, financial services, social enterprises, and cultural institutions. Many have also contributed to community development initiatives and think tanks, where their expertise in urban studies is highly valued.

Additionally, the programme has a strong track record of graduates securing funded PhD positions. These students have gone on to conduct research at prestigious institutions, including UCL departments such as Geography, the Development Planning Unit, Planning, CASA, and Architectural Design. Our graduates have also pursued doctoral studies at leading universities across Europe and North America, including the University of Zurich, LSE, Cambridge University, King's College London, Universidade do Porto, Harvard, Humboldt University Berlin, TU Berlin, Oxford University, and the University of Minnesota.