Delivering on a WISH for better jobs is crucial to securing future workforce

In the 1970s, many UK farm workers, as well as those in mines, distribution or factories, still did back-breaking, low-paid monotonous jobs and mechanisation was only slowly starting to make life easier. Fast forward to 2025 and work is different, but have we come far enough? 

With an outdated perception as an industry that is unskilled, requires long hours in inhospitable environments, pays poorly, lacks opportunity and professionalism, there is no wonder our industry is rarely recommended to future employees when they meet a careers advisor for the first time. 

The reality for many is of course very different. Jobs in the industry are often highly skilled, increasingly well paid, with additional benefits and clear progression. Careers in this sector are now varied, interesting and provide significant opportunities for those looking to progress. 

Skills research has shown that many other sectors are also struggling to find staff, and the technical, managerial and digital skills we need for the current agricultural revolution are also needed in construction, engineering, energy and water, amongst other major sectors.

So how does agriculture compete? How do we find the next generation and ensure they want to work in our great industry?

As an industry we embrace constant change, and this has never been more important. While we can all wish for better jobs in farming, we need to help deliver on this WISH by creating jobs which are:

• Well paid
• Interesting
• Sustainable
• Healthy

Only by creating jobs which young people really want to do can we hope to compete with other sectors to attract the dynamic, technically savvy young people we need and secure the talented workers and business owners we need.

So, let’s unpack what a WISH for better jobs agenda would look like in practice.

Well paid

New entrants and existing staff cannot be expected to continue in the industry unless the rewards on offer allow them to live well. This means the income security to buy or rent a house, have a family, travel and build a decent pension, and to do all of this without having to consistently work 60 hours a week. 

While current profit margins suggest many farms would struggle to pay more, a focus on technology to enhance productivity means each hour worked is much more productive. Embracing technology is hard and often expensive, but if it enables work to be done more efficiently it can allow higher wages. In some cases, we will need to share this technology across multiple farms to manage costs, but this will produce added benefits of increased social contact and knowledge sharing.

Interesting

While we may have undertaken boring manual tasks ourselves in the past, this is no justification to make the next generation do the same. If we want progressive young people in the industry with the ideas to drive it forward, we have to create jobs which stimulate the mind, which have variety and, critically, which allow workers to develop and use their own ideas and initiative. 

The same applies in family businesses, with the next generation wanting to try new ideas. Too many farms fail to secure succession because the older generation want to retain control, not just of assets but more importantly of ideas and ways of working.

Of course, experience still counts, but we must not automatically dismiss a young person’s capacity for new ideas which will help our farms thrive, so let’s embrace this and make their jobs interesting.

Sustainable

Industrial change is as natural as evolution. To attract the next generation, we have to embrace the idea that many of them will have multiple jobs during a successful career, because the idea of a job for life is no longer relevant. We therefore need to focus on careers, not jobs. 

For many this will mean working for multiple employers, combining having a job with entrepreneurship and/or changing job roles multiple times, even if they remain in one business throughout their career. Unless we provide careers, rather than jobs, many young people will choose to work elsewhere.

Additionally, every survey shows that most young people care deeply about the environment, so careers in the sector need to be environmentally sustainable as well. 

A BBC Bitesize survey in March 2025, showed that young people want to make a difference in their career, with ‘feeling good about what you do’ topping the list, followed by ‘happiness’ and ‘money’. So we have to create jobs through which you can have a real and positive impact on the environment. Luckily agriculture is very well placed to do this.

Healthy

Mechanisation and increased awareness have helped reduce accidents and long-term health problems. But the uncomfortable truth is health and safety improvements have stalled in agriculture in recent years, unlike other sectors. 

Despite only representing 1% of the workforce, agriculture accounted for 18.5% of work related deaths in 2024-25 (HSE, March 2025). We have to do better by using technology, raising awareness and training effectively.

Loneliness and mental health are also real problems. While the location of our work can support both mental and physical health through contact with nature, most people also need social contact.

Attending off farm events and networks is about more than learning, the social benefit is huge, and real change can happen from this communication and connection. The recent development of farm clusters is helping, but more must be done and further government support provided for learning networks focused on agri-tech and productivity if we want to see the size and speed of change required. 

Moving forward

Higher wages, making jobs interesting, safer and healthier, will cost money. There is no argument we need to invest, but the bigger cost would be not to change and then not to have the workforce required. This would mean we have failed.

Agri-tech can and is already revolutionising many jobs on farms, so each worker can produce much more and thus be rewarded with better pay and conditions. By opening our minds to innovations, gaining the skills needed to adopt technology and working with others to embrace change, we can ensure our businesses are successful at the same time as creating jobs which young people wish to do.

Our industry can have a bright future, but to do this we have to deliver on the WISH for better jobs which enrich the lives of those who choose to join our fantastic industry. 

 

About the author: Martin Collison

Director Collison and Associates Limited and Visiting Professor in AgriFood Systems at the Lincoln Institute for AgriFood Technology (LIAT).

Martin has been an agrifood consultant since 2000, working on more than 200 projects in agriculture and the food chain. He has also been an academic since 1987 and is now a visiting professor in agrifood systems at the Lincoln Institute for AgriFood Technology (LIAT). His business career has included roles in livestock, horticulture, arable, consultancy and trade since 1981.

Martin helped government develop the UK Strategy for Agricultural Technologies (2013) and has spent much of the last decade helping to deliver growth in the agrifood sector, enabled by technology and market changes. Martin chairs the Norfolk and Suffolk AgriFood Industry Council and has been on the national CLA Agriculture and Land Use Committee for 12 years.

In the last 10 years, Martin has written agrifood growth plans for Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, the Midlands, the Great South West, Gloucestershire and the South East and London regions, covering more than 50% of England’s agrifood production.

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