In Focus: The Forestry and Arboriculture Training Fund and careers in forestry

The UK Government has set ambitious targets for tree planting over the coming decades to help meet its net zero goals. But what about the workforce who will plant and manage the trees and woodlands of the future? Is it sufficient? What about those wishing to be part of it – what roles are there for younger people looking to forge a career in forestry or perhaps those in mid-career who are looking to retrain? 

In this article, Graham Clark, Senior Land Use Policy Adviser and CLA policy lead for forestry, considers these issues, outlines aspects of a key forestry and arboriculture training scheme and looks at how to develop a career in the sector.

For the past two years, the Forestry Commission in England has operated the Forestry and Arboriculture Training Fund (FATF), which covers the costs of a diverse selection of short forestry and arboriculture practical training courses. These include planning and planting new woodlands, coppicing, marketing and selling timber, chainsaw maintenance, deer stalking, fencing and hedge-laying. Arboricultural courses include aerial tree pruning, crown reduction, tree felling and tree surveying. You can even suggest courses not on the prescribed list and they may still get funded.

The fund is aimed at career changers or those looking to build and diversify their skills in forestry and arboriculture. It covers 100% of the costs for eligible training courses, making them free to applicants with funding paid directly to the training provider. However, with interest in careers and training in the sector growing over recent years, this fund has proved incredibly popular, with many courses becoming oversubscribed within a few days of the scheme applications opening.

A similar scheme has also recently opened in Wales - the Forestry and Timber Skills training fund – which was announced in early November. This fund is part of the Welsh Government’s Flexible Skills Programme and will support businesses to address skills gaps within their workforce by subsidising places on accredited forestry and timber supply chain courses, with up to £20,000 available per organisation.

The eligibility criteria favours people who would like to take a step towards a career in forestry or arboriculture; people currently working in other land-based sectors (such as agriculture) who would like to broaden their skill base; people wanting to switch careers and needing to develop skills to get them started and people currently working in forestry and arboriculture who would like to add to or further develop their skills.

There are more than one hundred courses that are supported by the FATF and between them, they can offer the first step into forestry and arboriculture or can help top-up your current skills and develop your career further.

With such a wide range to choose from, it can be hard to know where to start but it might be worth thinking about what are known to be some of the more popular ones, as there will be a reason why these have had a strong take up to date. Here are some of the more popular areas of training.

A wide range of woodland management and silviculture courses are possible through the FATF. These can help grow experience in creating and managing different types of woodlands. Possible courses include:

• Forestry for non-foresters
• Planting and establishing woodlands
• Woodland inventory - assessing stand volume
• A range of more advanced silviculture courses including establishing resilient woodland; transformation to continuous cover forestry, and forest operations, marketing and integrated management. 

With populations of some deer species in many areas having reached unsustainable levels there is a growing need to manage deer numbers and their impact on trees and woodlands. Deer management is therefore a growing area for training. Courses leading to the award of Deer Stalking Certificate (DSC) Level 1 and Level 2 are increasingly popular. Deer ecology, identification, law, stalking techniques and safety are all covered with assessment including practical marksmanship.

With fencing being a key feature of woodland creation and hedges featuring in Sustainable Farming Incentive and Countryside Stewardship actions, it is little surprise this has proved to be a popular area for training. Fencing includes installation of post and wire and post and rail types whilst hedge laying and coppicing, long considered a ‘traditional craft’ is now a staple skill for the future management of hedges. Courses get to grips with elements such as cutting through hedge stems and staking them and understanding their uses as a stock proof barrier and wildlife habitat.

Arboriculture workers will benefit from training in such areas as the safe use of mobile elevated work platforms (MEWP) and the use of chainsaws from MEWPs. Many other arboricultural courses are available leading to the award of certificates of competence in such skills as tree climbing and aerial rescue, branch removal and crown reduction and different levels of tree inspection. 

A variety of chainsaw courses to different levels are also available including chainsaw maintenance and cross cutting, felling and processing of trees (of different sizes), and severing uprooted and windblown trees. 

With interest in careers and training in the sector growing over recent years, this fund has proved incredibly popular and quickly becomes oversubscribed, so if you are interested in accessing it, don’t delay in making an application.

Applications are usually done by completing and submitting the application form online. A searchable course list can help you find out what is available before submitting your application. If you are unable to submit your application online, there is the option to request a form by post.

While there is no deadline for applications, a very high volume of applications has been received within days of it opening in both 2023 and 2024 – so the advice is to keep an eye out for the next round (likely in summer 2025). Those who benefit will be those who are able to move fast to secure places and funds for the course of their choice.

Forestry and arboriculture can offer a very wide range of interesting and rewarding careers and there is now a lot of help toward training at various levels within the sector. But interest is high and funding finite, so this leads to a number of questions.

With the field in forestry becoming more popular as a career choice, grants to help people along that pathway are also highly sought after, so here we look at some of the most common questions and their answers.

One of the first questions people ask is what size of grant can they apply for? The government has been offering 100% funding for eligible courses, meaning courses are free for applicants through the FATF.

As mentioned earlier, the fund is popular meaning that unfortunately, applicants are not always successful, prompting the question how many times can they apply to the fund? Priority is given to those not previously awarded grant funding through the programme, or who have been awarded funding for less than three courses since February 2023. 

The government wants to grow the tree canopy and woodland cover in England from 14.5 per cent of land area to 16.5 per cent - some 250,000 hectares – by 2050. That’s around 10,000 ha per year over the next 25 years. The Welsh Government’s aim is for 43,000 ha of new woodland by 2030. 

As well as these millions of newly planted trees, our existing woods also need to be managed and commercial plantations harvested. This involves a host of tasks over decades – pruning, thinning, selective felling, clear-felling and extraction, restocking, deer and grey squirrel control, monitoring growth and managing pests and diseases like ash dieback or the eight toothed spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) for example. 

There is a growing need for trained woodland managers and forestry contractors to plan, undertake and oversee all this practical woodland management work, ensuring it is done safely and in compliance with applicable laws and standards.

Alongside timber production and forest conservation in woodland settings, many trees are located outside of woodlands - in open countryside, parks, gardens, urban streets, along rural roadsides and railways. These ‘amenity’ trees also need to be properly managed if they are to continue to provide the many benefits we get from them and if we are to avoid them causing problems like interference with telecommunication or electricity pylon infrastructure.

There is, therefore, increasing demand for those with practical tree management skills – climbing, pruning, chainsaw work – to safely manage our amenity trees and for professionals to assess and manage risks from trees in various settings. 

As a result, there are many roles within the forestry and arboricultural sector across local and national government, utilities, woodland management companies, charities and woodland initiatives like Community Forests and the advisory part of the sector. Roles relating to forestry also exist further upstream and downstream in the supply chain – tree nurseries, sawmilling and wood processing.

With all these roles and opportunities and increasing knowledge of just how much trees provide for us, forestry and arboriculture is very much a career with a future.

The strong interest the government now has in trees means that the workforce has to expand to meet future demands. Research by the sector wide Forestry Skills Forum in 2021 revealed a shortage of skilled people at all levels right across the sector. Defra, the Forestry Commission and organisations like the Institute of Chartered Foresters (ICF), are developing a Forest Sector Skills Plan for the next ten years.

There are now a number of ways to get into forestry with a useful starting point being the Routes into forestry careers gov.uk webpage. There are a range forestry and arboriculture T level courses now offered by various colleges across the country, with a useful list maintained by the Royal Forestry Society. These can be a route into both the practical and professional sides of the sector.

For those aiming for a professional role, a forestry degree remains a key route. There are fewer universities offering these now than in the past, although Bangor University in Wales remains one of the main institutions still offering forestry degree courses. 

However, the Forestry Commission also runs a three-year Professional Forester Apprenticeship programme in partnership with the University of Cumbria and the ICF, combining paid employment, work experience and degree level learning. After completing the course, successful candidates are eligible to apply for Chartered Forester status through the ICF.

• Forestry Commission
• Forestry England
• Welsh Government - The Forestry and Timber Skills
• Institute of Chartered Foresters - Forestry Sector Skills Plan (England)

• National Forestry Conference 2024: A review
• How can changes to woodland creation grants be an opportunity for landowners?
• Creating woodland one lease at a time
• Funding and advice for woodland creation in England