Experienced leader for an ambitious planning department in growth

Do you want to lead a strong professional community and create the best framework for talented employees to succeed, so you together set the direction for the physical development of Varde Municipality? As head of the planning team you will have a meaningful leadership role in a department that thinks long-term and dares to invest in future talents. Here you help make decisions that leave marks on the landscape and have great significance for local communities and the next generations.

Apply for the job if you are passionate about

• Working with some of Denmark's most current planning and development agendas
• Combining your interest in personnel leadership and urban planning
• Succeeding with Varde Municipality's first architecture policy
• Translating our upcoming planning strategy into practice
• Setting the direction, creating followership and developing a strong professional team
• Shaping both culture, organization and ways of working

Plan the future together with us

We are a planning department with room to breathe, and here you will have a broad contact surface and tasks ranging from the large strategic lines to the concrete planning process. Independence, commitment, flexibility and trust-based collaboration are an important part of everyday life.

You will have the personnel responsibility for Varde Municipality's planners and become the planning chief's close and confidential partner. Your main task is to create the framework that enables technically strong employees to succeed as a team.

In Varde Municipality we work with some of the agendas that leave clear marks on the landscape and in local communities. Green transition, urban development, business development, tourism, energy projects and strong local communities place large demands on physical planning.

How your leadership can create development

We believe in freedom with responsibility, a high ceiling, and room for new ideas. Therefore we are looking for an approachable leader who is motivated by developing employees, creating well-being and ensuring strong results in a professional environment with great importance for the future local communities.

You will lead about 10 skilled and independent planners who work with complex tasks such as municipal plan and planning strategy, local plans, urban development, urban renewal, conservation, urban environment, landscape, environmental assessments and planning related to renewable energy and energy-intensive companies. We have organized ourselves with two subject coordinators in both local and municipal planning.

Citizen involvement and dialogue are a natural part of our task resolution, and we need a leader who shares our view that it is essential to always have our finger on the pulse and involve broadly. Both the department head and the planning chief play an important role in inclusive processes and e.g. public meetings.

You will be responsible for both people and tasks, and we hope you have good experience balancing consideration for employees' strengths, motivation and development while also maintaining the whole, quality and the agreed deliverables – even when many important tasks call for attention at the same time.

In daily work you will have both people management focusing on well-being, motivation and development, and you will be a professional sparring partner when employees handle complex processes or cases. Overall, you will create an overview of the team’s total task portfolio and ensure clear coordination and prioritization, while contributing to developing workflows and collaboration practices.

We want to be at the forefront

We are in a period where we are preparing for the future. There is pace, but we have made the strategic decision to build on our strengths, warmly welcome newcomers to the department and train new talents. In Varde Municipality we believe that the strongest organizations of the future are created by developing people. Therefore we have consciously chosen to invest in talent development, training and professional growth.

We have the courage to hire talented graduates because we know they will be tomorrow's key employees. Therefore, as a leader you will have an important role in developing talents, strengthening the sense of community and creating a culture where both new and experienced employees thrive and succeed.

We have a strong culture of cross-functional collaboration – both across the organization in Varde Municipality and with politicians, citizens, businesses and other partners. Many employees play an important role in Varde Municipality's cross-functional task force Growth and Energy Projects, which is meant to support authority work and planning in relation to installations and energy projects. You may read more in Budget Agreement-2027-2030.pdf .

Does this sound like you?

You are an experienced people leader and know how to create well-being, engagement and development in a professionally strong team. You have experience leading people and processes in a politically led environment where good communication, diplomacy, trust and collaboration are crucial to success.

You are able to

• build trust and following
• set clear direction
• prioritize in a busy daily life
• translate strategies into action
• develop employees and teams

Your job will require a planning-oriented background with experience from e.g. physical planning, municipal or local planning, urban development or related authorities tasks. Educationally, we expect you to have a relevant planning background, but we are not rigid about your specific academic background.

Your application

If you would like to join the team, please send us your application no later than November 2, 2026. We expect to conduct interviews on November 9 and 19. Between interviews we may conduct a personality profile.

If you want to hear more about the job, you are very welcome to call Planning Chief Malene Munch at 29 13 22 50. If she is hard to reach, please send a text message asking to be called back.

We want our new leader to start as soon as possible or no later than January 1, 2027.

The position is full-time, and salary and employment terms are in accordance with the applicable collective agreement and after negotiation.

Your workplace will be at Varde Town Hall until Easter 2027, when we have the opportunity to move into newly renovated premises in Sig, about 10 km north of Varde. Here we will bring together these departments from the planning area: Roads and Parks, Nature Center, Business Center and all of us from the planning department.

We are a municipality with ambitions, drive and room for new ideas. We believe in trust rather than micromanagement, in development rather than rigid thinking, and in the idea that the best results are created in unity.

Does this sound like something for you? Then we very much look forward to reading your application.