It is widely known and documented that the forestry sector needs significant growth of skilled workforce to meet demand for tree planting, maintenance, management and productive timber.
The Forestry Skills Forum (FSF) has achieved great successes through collaborative working and action planning. The FSF current forestry skills action plan runs until December 2024 – now is an opportune time for the sector to agree some key strategic actions for combined sector commitment.
To meet the Government’s statutory target for new woodland creation and woodland management, we need more skilled people at all levels. Forestry Commission, in partnership with Defra, want to catalyse the development of a Sector Skills Plan which will agree the strategic direction and key actions for the next ten years.
Meet the steering team
A steering team has been established to set the strategic direction for sector skills – agreeing a few key initiatives to collectively pursue will increase momentum and combine sector resources to maximise impact.
Statement of scope
The steering team has agreed to focus on core forestry workforce and skills. Specifically, focus will be on activities within the woodland, field or forest ‘gates’. Out of scope are activities looking back beyond the ‘entry gate’ to areas such as, seed sourcing, nurseries, forestry related science and research roles. Also not in scope are activities looking beyond the ‘exit gate’ such as, haulage, sawmilling, first and secondary wood processing. Flexibility will be retained to create actions which work across subjects (e.g. arboriculture and agroforestry), nations and the supply chain which improve the core forestry workforce and/or increases the availability of skills needed to meet the anticipated future demands placed on the forestry sector.
The plan will focus on England actions only, but the other UK nations will be engaged and there should be opportunity for cross border collaboration.
If this plan is a successful catalyst for strategic action, consideration can be given in future to creating plans for other sectors or wider supply-chain activity.
Purpose
The purpose of the steering team is:
- Set strategic direction, agree scope and timescales
- Agree the key sector issues to address
- Agree the actions to address these
- Commit resource to actions
- Agree the plan wording
- Advocate for the plan and commitment to actions
- Agree strategic direction, resource allocation and governance for delivery of the plan actions
- Ensure alignment, where practical, with other sector or Government plans
Statement of problem
There are not enough people with the right skills to support current and anticipated needs in the forestry sector. To change this there are several drivers which must be addressed and four key barriers to overcome; data availability, sector structural barriers, career pathways and promotion, and provision.
The existing data on the current and future workforce does not provide a reliable picture and relies on a small pool of primary data sources. Current reports on labour market intelligence and provision intelligence are out of date. Reliable data insights are necessary to understand the existing issues in the forestry workforce and to allow the sector to act proactively to prevent future issues from arising.
The sector is small and fragmented with low levels of collaboration. This prevents the sector from effectively attracting new and upskilling existing employees. At a technical level, the sector is dominated by micro-businesses working from contract to contract: unable or unwilling to commit to education, training or apprenticeships, resulting in a lack of investment further down the supply chain. Additionally, there is a widely recognised lack of diversity (gender, ethnicity, age etc) across the sector reducing the breadth and diversity of skills, knowledge, and experience within the sector.
There is an absence of career pathways and a lack of clarity around pathways that are there for new starters, progression or specialisation. This makes it difficult to enter, and progress within, the forestry sector. Perceptions of the sector are poor re pay, roles, availability of courses etc Further to this, the low level of promotion for entry roles, and the low awareness of the variety of roles and available career opportunities are preventing the forestry workforce from upsizing and upskilling. Information on careers can be difficult to source and there is no one place to go to find roles and opportunities.
Full-time education
At all levels the market for forestry courses is failing to provide the skilled people needed to meet present or future needs. At a technical level, forestry education and training is expensive and requires specialist equipment and access to woodland for training: demand is poor and there is a major shortfall in the number of forestry tutors, lecturers, instructors and assessors. As such it is a challenge for colleges to offer. Forestry content is not well-represented in schools at GCSE level or other early formal education.
Work-based learning
For similar reasons, there is a lack of work-based provision – i.e. apprenticeships, T-levels, Skills Bootcamps, career path development. The quality and availability of education and training currently is inconsistent, with forestry often being an ‘add on’ to other courses. With shorter and lower-level courses there is a real concern that people completing education and training do not have the skills or experience to begin work. Forestry contracting businesses often lack the capacity to employ and supervise new entrants in their post education and training consolidation period.
CPD and short-course technical training
Short courses have recently been given a boost from the Forestry and Arboriculture Training Fund. However, there is still both strong demand and a strong need for this type of education and training. There is a gap in the planning for future CPD subject needs. This has resulted in skills education and training such as, developments in silviculture, agroforestry, green finance etc., not being delivered at the required volume.
Resolving the skills issues – how you can get involved
The forestry sector needs many more people and a variety of new skills and knowledge to thrive in the next ten years.
We are creating a sector skills plan – a ten-year vision for the development of the right skills to support current and anticipated needs in the forestry sector with agreed key issues and agreed key actions.
We would welcome your ideas for actions to resolve the skills issues – please share your ideas to tackle these issues by answering six questions via the link below.
