Tree Surgeon Careers Guide
Tree Surgeons are like tree doctors – they keep them healthy and safe with specialist care.
Getting into Tree Surgeon careers
How Much Money Can You Earn As A Tree Surgeon?
These LMI Job Trends give you a sneak peek of how much you could earn starting out for this career, and how much your salary could grow with experience.
Salary guide for forestry jobs
Recent labour market information says you can earn on average between £18,000 and £32,000 a year as a Tree Surgeon in the UK.
Your starting salary can vary because of factors like level of experience, training, or location. Your salary will increase over time as you build skills, knowledge and experience.
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Skills You Need To Become A Tree Surgeon
Useful Skills To Put On Your CV:
- Self-belief skills – self-belief isn’t just confidence but perseverance. You’ll be presented with environmental challenges where you may have to try several approaches to find one that works best for biodiversity.
- Good communication skills and teamworking skills – you’ll usually be working as part of a team, and sharing your findings with an organisation or client.
- Good problem solving skills – a creative approach to problems is often needed in forestry work.
- Good organisation skills – forestry often means doing field work in the great outdoors, but there’s a lot of paperwork involved too. You could be analysing data or making reports on your recommendations for environmentally sustainable action.
- Self-management skills – you’ll usually receive training from your employer, but it’s up to you to have a keen interest in forestry and the passion to top up your skills and knowledge.
How Do You Get Skills?
Vocational qualifications and work experience will help you build these skills over time.
Build Your Skills With the FREE Young Professional Programme
What Qualifications & Training Do You Need For Forestry Careers?
School and college
Whichever type of forestry role you specialise in, it will be useful to have at least five GCSEs (or the equivalent) with passing grades of 9-4 (A to C) including English, maths, at least one science, and possibly geography.
You will also benefit from having at least two A-levels with good passing grades. These will help you get into a junior job where you can build skills and knowledge with training, or apply for a degree. You could also apply for a relevant apprenticeship.
You can also study towards a T Level in Agriculture, Land Management and Production, which has a work placement built into the course programme.
University degrees and graduates
If you think university is the right choice for you, some useful related degrees include:
- Biology
- Engineering
- Environmental science
- Geography
Forestry Apprenticeships
An alternative route is to take your first step into a forestry career with an Arboriculturist apprenticeship.
You’ll get to build skills and knowledge whilst earning a salary, and gain a free qualification. You can study apprenticeships from Level 2 (entry level) to Level 6/7 (degree level).
Training
Finding courses that allow you to build your forestry and tree surgeon skills are a great option.
Whether they’re online, part of a full qualification, or a one-off training course, they’re perfect if you’re starting out in your career.
Did you know? Lantra provide training and assessments across the UK and Ireland that build your forestry skills and most importantly, your health and safety knowledge.
Career Progression
Starting out in forestry
There are many ways you can start your forestry career. To become a Tree Surgeon, you might choose to start as a Ground Worker, supporting Tree Surgeons with their work.
Once you become a qualified Tree Surgeon and gain experience, you could become a team supervisor or manager.
What next?
Some Tree Surgeons work for companies, whereas some choose to become self-employed and start their own business once they have the right skills and experience.
What Work Experience Do You Need For Forestry Jobs?
Work Experience Tips
It can help your application if you have previously done work experience or volunteering in a conservation or forestry environment.
Examples of relevant work experience include:
- Work shadowing (even if it’s just for a day)
- Work placements in a company
- Industry placements on a degree course
Volunteering Tips
There are lots of opportunities for forestry volunteering across the UK. Visit these organisations to find out more:
What Does A Tree Surgeon Do?
Where could you work?
As a Tree Surgeon, you’ll spend a lot of time outdoors, in all kinds of weather.
There may be a lot of travel involved to get to specific tree locations, and some jobs may be short notice, like emergency work after tree damage from a storm.
Example daily job responsibilities
- Cutting trees, branches and logs
- Planting trees and plants
- Identifying hazards
- Assessing tree health and treating them
- Servicing forestry equipment
- Creating tree survey reports
- Working with clients and doing administrative tasks
It’s important to consider that forestry work can be very noisy, and as you’ll be climbing and using machinery on trees, you may be exposed to sawdust and fumes. However, you will get training and specialist safety equipment such as ear protectors, helmets, gloves, and safety ropes.
How To Find Forestry Jobs: Next Steps
To find jobs for young people in this role, search on jobs boards for early career roles with these words in the title:
- Tree Surgeon
- Arborist
- Tree Climber
- Arboriculturist
If you’re interested in forestry, you might also like to explore a career as a:
These websites might be able to help you find forestry experience or a role that’s a good fit for you:
Get Into Land, Animal & Environment Careers With Youth-Friendly Employers
These employers and organisations are here to help. They care about your potential and desire to learn, not just your qualifications and experience. They may be able to offer traineeships, apprenticeships, graduate schemes, first jobs, careers advice, wellbeing support and much more.
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