It is now commonplace to point to obvious difficulties faced by new graduates in finding graduate jobs. The advance of AI is often seen as the issue, even it may have been used by students on their courses, but the reality may more often be the scale of hirings after the pandemic with a stagnant economy now excluding more hiring. However, agricultural valuation work is a growth area for graduates with LandIt.Jobs the leading place to see what is on offer.
The National Problem
In the UK, the “graduate premium”, the proportion by which graduates earn more than those who did not go to university, has been weakening, partly as the rising national minimum wage now comes to match entry level earnings. Analysis for the Financial Times shows that the UK is a remarkable international outlier for this. Our graduate premium has fallen over 30 years from 80 per cent to 45 per cent (before considering payments on student loans, effectively higher Income Tax), while in the US it has risen from 80 per cent to 92 per cent. In Holland, the graduate premium has grown from 50 per cent to 80 per cent.
The difference seems to lie in the UK economy having created fewer graduate jobs over that period – all part of our poor record on improving productivity. In the US, professional and management jobs have, over 30 years, grown from 28 to 39 per cent; in Holland from 34 to 45 per cent in 20 years. Over 35 years, the UK growth in such jobs has been much less, from 27 per cent to 33 per cent.
In short, we have more graduates with not so many more graduate jobs. Yet again, the balance of supply and demand explains much. As a result, more UK graduates work in non-graduate areas, further pulling down the premium, while economics, student loan payments and other taxation lead more to go abroad.
The Rural Answer
Agricultural valuations, advising and acting for farmers, landowners and others on their rural property and business, is one area where graduate jobs have been growing and demand continues. Simply using the number of qualified Fellows of the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers (CAAV) as a measure, that has grown by 43 per cent since 2004. Yet, with more Fellows and more in training than ever before, the CAAV, as the UK-wide professional association, is actively seeking more good people to handle the growing volume of work in the countryside.
This is not only traditional estate management and farm valuations but environmental management, infrastructure development and compensation, business structures and planning and the many new issues driving change in the countryside, using old skills and new technologies, all the while working as trusted advisers with people on practical problems.
This is why the CAAV has created Route to Rural as a campaign to spread awareness of this work and attract people to it. Working with major employers and the relevant universities, the CAAV is working at the national level while CAAV local associations and members can present at careers events and offer work experience.
The main universities offering relevant courses with different structures and styles are:
- Harper Adams University in Shropshire, also offering degree apprenticeships
- Plumpton College in Sussex, working with the University of Greenwich
- Reading University in Berkshire
- the Royal Agricultural University in Gloucestershire
- the Scottish Rural University College.
Qualifying as a CAAV Fellow is then achieved by passing the CAAV’s own practical, written and oral examinations based on a farm.
Government policies, from farming and environmental support to development and infrastructure, are changing. We need to mitigate climate change and to adapt to it. The new technologies alter farming and other work. Geopolitical and economic uncertainty make the countryside more important as a national resource. Such a pace of change means that professional work in the countryside grows, bucking the national trend offering interesting and varied careers where graduates can make a difference.
Footnote – LandIt.Jobs is the leading website for rural professional recruitment, not only for agricultural valuations but also from environmental work to utilities with renewables, infrastructure and other sectors, as well as agricultural management and forestry.