Actually, studying for an agriculture degree would get you much further than you might think. As far as an employer is concerned, you’d have a very useful combination of skills developed while you were studying for that degree. As your studies progress, you’d also be developing a wide mix of skills, including organisational skills, as well the ability to manage both projects and people.

Degree courses give you the opportunity to study agriculture, with subjects like mechanisation, animal husbandry, crop management, environmental studies, business management and marketing. It’s very likely that you’d be looking at UK and EU policies and their affect on food production. You may even find yourself the links between agriculture and the environment in the past, present and the future.

So if you sign up to study agriculture, what kind of jobs could you expect to do afterwards? Both commercial and ancillary companies here in the UK and abroad can offer great opportunities, and if you’re thinking about doing a spot of travelling, say, to Australia, Canada, America or New Zealand – and getting paid for it – you’ll find that studying agriculture might be very worth your while because they’re always on the lookout for people with agriculture degrees (don’t forget to send a postcard). Naturally, one career option would be farm management… but other positions could be agricultural economist, agriculture research scientist, agricultural consultant and even perhaps agricultural auctioneer. Research shows the most popular jobs for graduates who studied agriculture are production, management, quality control and marketing.

Jobs like those would definitely need a degree in agriculture, while other positions an agricultural degree would be extremely useful for would be a field trials officer, magazine or newspaper journalist or even a sales executive.

According to an HESA study in 2010, half of those who’d studied agriculture to degree level had started work in the UK within six months. A further 3% had gone overseas and started work there. Of those working graduates, around 20% were working in managerial positions in the industrial, commercial or public sector. 60% of those graduates went into technical professional occupations. 10% went into retail and catering while the others went into scientific analysis and research, secretarial and clerical positions and into marketing and sales.