The Landscape Institute is the UK's chartered professional body for landscape architects, planners, managers, scientists and urban designers.
The Landscape Institute, or LI, is the professional body for people who work with landscapes in the UK. That includes landscape architects, who design parks, streets, gardens and public squares, as well as landscape planners, managers, scientists and urban designers. It awards Chartered (CMLI) and Fellow (FLI) membership to people who reach high standards, runs a professional development programme, represents the profession to government on subjects such as housing, flooding and public health, and promotes landscape work through case studies and an annual awards event. It also provides advocacy, events and networking through branches around the UK.
Its stated aim, through its chartered members, is to "protect, conserve and enhance the natural and built environment for the public benefit". The LI describes itself as an educational charity that supports landscape practice that creates thriving communities, and it backs work on public health, sustainability and tackling climate change. This wording matches the aim in its royal charter, according to Wikipedia. The page we read gave no separate vision statement, so none is quoted here.
Wikipedia says the Landscape Institute was founded in 1929 or 1930 as the Institute of Landscape Architects and took its current name in 1977. Geoffrey Jellicoe, one of its presidents, also helped found the International Federation of Landscape Architects in 1948. The institute received a royal charter in 1997, revised in 2008 and 2016. Its headquarters is in London, and it has about 6,000 members as of 2025. The UK Government recognises it as the regulating body for the profession, although "landscape architect" is not a legally protected title. The LI's own page says its library and archive was donated to the Museum of English Rural Life in 2013.
Staff at the institute work on policy, education and accreditation, membership, events, publishing and communications; it publishes a journal called Landscape. Wikipedia also reports a 2022 governance dispute over the presidency that was covered in the press, and a new president, Carolin Gohler, in 2024. We mention this only so you know that professional bodies, like any organisation, have their disagreements. The LI's own pages do not describe the daily culture of its staff.
For a student, the LI is the place to find out what landscape careers look like. It runs career campaigns including #ChooseLandscape, and chartered status is the recognised mark of a qualified landscape professional. If you like design, plants, ecology, geography or making outdoor places better for people and wildlife, the LI website explains courses and routes in. We did not check its current vacancies.
Website: www.landscapeinstitute.org
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