Agricultural Engineering Technician careers guide & job description

Getting into land based engineering careers

From forests to golf courses, as an agricultural engineering technician you’ll find practical ways to fix engineering problems for machinery used in servicing the land. It’s not just tractors. This is a challenging and rewarding career where you could be trained to make all kinds of equipment sing, from turfcare machinery to bridge design or building tree top walkways. Your skills will be useful all over the UK -in fact, wherever there is land! P.S. you can enter this career with an apprenticeship and do college courses in it too.

Why is land based engineering important?

Land based engineering will play a big part in developing alternative fuel to care for our environment. UK agriculture uses some of the most advanced technology out there. It’s vital to stay on top of challenges like more mouths to feed, extreme weather, climate change and limited natural resources. Land based engineering always thinks about what the future will hold – and comes up with new ways to protect and use our resources wisely through technology.

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Useful Skills To Put On Your CV:

• Self-belief skills – you will persevere to find the root of a problem, and you know that learning through trial and error is all part of challenges like fixing equipment or helping with new forestry development projects you’ve never tried before.
• Good communication skills and teamworking skills – you’ll usually be working as part of a team, and being trained and instructed by your manager.
• Good problem solving skills – you’ll have a logical approach to practical problems, and sometimes a creative approach and thinking outside the box to overcome a challenge is useful too!
• Good organisation skills – an engineering work environment needs to be kept in order so that you always know where your equipment and tools are, and they’re kept in good condition.

Top Skills-Boosting Tip

You’ll receive training from your employer, but it’s up to you to have a keen interest in engineering and the passion to top up your skills and knowledge. Your Self-management skills will come in handy!

How Do You Get These Skills?

Vocational qualifications and work experience will help you build these skills over time.

Build Your Skills With the FREE Young Professional Programme

School, college and training

You don’t need any formal qualifications to get started in land based engineering. You don’t need a rural background, either – so you don’t have to have grown up on a farm. You will, however, need an interest in engineering, science and computer studies – and you will like the idea of the great outdoors.

You’ll have what it takes to make a great agricultural engineering technician if you love a practical, hands-on approach to problems, and you’re interested in what makes equipment tick. You can start as a school leaver, either getting trained on the job or doing a land based engineering apprenticeship.

You can apply for a land based engineering apprenticeship after you’ve done your GCSEs or the equivalent, but if you’re staying on for A-levels, useful subjects include maths, physics, electronics, chemistry, design technology, biology, geology or geography.

Agriculture, Land Management and Production T-Levels

T-Levels are a choice for learners after GCSEs alongside apprenticeships and A-levels. The Agriculture, Land Management and Production T-Level includes a Technical Qualification (TQ) and an industry placement with an employer. It’s not engineering-specific but this T-Level could help you decide if a land based career is for you.

Land Based Engineering Apprenticeships

There are lots of agricultural apprenticeships out there. You can find out more at the Land Based Engineering website.

There are two main types of apprenticeships in land based engineering:

• Level 2 (foundation)
• Level 3 (advanced)

Both lead to work-based Diplomas. These are nationally-recognised qualifications that prove you are skilled and have the knowledge to make it in this career.

University degrees and graduates

You can do a foundation degree or degree in agricultural engineering or agricultural machinery engineering. These courses tend to be offered by land-based engineering institutions.

You can take the graduate route into this career with a higher national diploma or degree in environmental, electrical or mechanical engineering.

With time and experience you could lead a team and become a senior technician or workshop manager. You could also move into an experienced sales or management position, and be involved with potentially high-profile projects to change the face of land based engineering as we know it.

If you develop a network of industry contacts, you could find yourself in a good position to be self-employed and work for yourself, too.

Work Experience Tips

It can help your application if you have previously done work experience or volunteering in an environment where equipment is maintained and repaired. This will help you build up relevant experience on your CV and decide if you enjoy the practical side of things.

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

Work experience tips

Volunteering Tips

Any extra-curricular time you spend working on solo projects or helping others that involves using a computer, using maths or problems solving, or tinkering with machinery will really help you get a feel for what’s involved in this career, and if you would enjoy doing it.

Volunteering tips

Where could you work?

You could work in:

• Forestry engineering
• Golf courses and parks (this aspect of your job is known as ‘ground care’)
• Soil and water management
• Food processing and engineering
• Land use planning

Your location will depend a lot on the kind of work you do. For example, if you’re working in manufacturing, you could work in an engineering workshop or factory. It’s always useful to have a driving licence in this job so you can drive and test a range of vehicles and get around to where you’re needed.

Example daily job responsibilities

• Helping agricultural engineers plan and make new products
• Creating equipment plans using computer aided design (CAD) software
• Making parts and building machinery
• Testing the machinery’s electrical and mechanical systems
• Doing maintenance checks on mechanical, electrical, electronic, hydraulic and pneumatic systems
• Installing machinery on site
• Inspecting, removing, replacing and testing equipment
• Researching the latest equipment and market trends
• Showing people how to use new equipment and parts
• Looking after client accounts
• Dealing with enquiries and orders

To find jobs for young people in this role, search on jobs boards for early career roles with these words in the title:

• Agricultural technician
• Agricultural engineering technician
• Service engineer – agricultural machinery
• Agricultural apprentice technician
• Agricultural engineer apprentice
• Land based engineering apprenticeship

These websites might be able to help you find land based engineering experience or a role that’s a good fit for you:

• Find an Apprenticeship
• Find an Apprenticeship
• Institute of Agricultural Engineers (IAgrE)
• Landbasedengeering.com

These employers all carry our Youth Friendly Employer Mark. We work with them to make sure that they are providing great support and opportunities to young people.

Click on an employer to find out more about them and the youth-friendly opportunities they offer, from work experience and apprenticeships through to graduate schemes.