Alan Tate has a Bachelor's degree in Town and Country Planning and an accredited Diploma in Landscape Design from the University of Manchester, England and a PhD in Architecture from Edinburgh College of Art / Heriot Watt University. He has over twenty years professional experience and is a Fellow and Past President of the United Kingdom Landscape Institute and a registered Landscape Architect. Following five years experience in local government and private practice in Nottingham and London he spent nine years running the Clouston landscape consultancy in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia before returning to Europe to lead the landscape design team for EuroDisneyland. Tate then spent nine years based in London, running Clifton Design followed by his own private practice before moving to Canada in 1998 to take up a teaching position at the University of Manitoba. He was Head of Department from 2000 to 2005 and again from 2011.

Tate completed his PhD in 2010. His thesis Typology and Built Environment examines the history of typological studies in architecture and urban design, and explores the categorization of urban space types on the basis of their generic or suffix names. Tate is currently working on a Second Edition of Great City Parks.