SKILLS
and TALENT

Skills for Agri-food

For the food system to thrive, it needs the right talent and skills to incorporate new technical advances and innovate. Explore our initiatives below to see how we're supporting the workforce of tomorrow for the fresh produce industry.

Attracting Talent

With increasingly innovative and high-tech businesses, the fresh produce industry needs to ensure that its future workforce has the right skills and training available. Businesses also need to be able to attract and retain the staff they need to grow, package and produce our food.

Ensuring the food system has a pipeline of talent requires effective collaboration and coordination between education providers, industry, and government.

Growing Kent & Medway has undertaken many initiatives to tackle the opportunities and challenges facing the sectors' skills gap. Our Workforce 2030 Strategy, developed following extensive industry consultation, was the foundation for our activity.

Workforce 2030

Report

Skills Strategy for 2030

Recommendations to ensure the agri-food industry has the workforce it needs to thrive and adapt to future market pressures. Developed in consultation with the fresh produce industry.

Read the Strategy

TIAH for Kent and Medway

Career Hub

We partnered with the Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture (TIAH) to create a digital hub to advance careers in our region. Use the hub to find training providers and learn about career options in the local sector.

Explore the Hub

Next Generation of Glasshouse Growers

The Thanet Earth Centre of Excellence at Hadlow College launched in June 2024 to inspire and train the next generation of UK salad and vegetable growers. Growing Kent & Medway proudly partnered the initiative, connecting higher education with industry to create a pipeline of technical talent for the sector.

Growing Kent & Medway

3 min read

The first seeds have been sown for what is hoped to be another bumper crop of tomatoes at the Thanet Earth Centre of Excellence @ Hadlow College in Kent. At the end of February, horticulture students from the college planted the 2025...

Seeds sown for first tomato crop for 2025 at Centre of Excellence for glasshouse growing

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Growing Kent & Medway

3 min read

The UK's first Centre of Excellence in greenhouse growing has had a bumper opening year, with a tonne of its produce being redistributed by a national food charity. During 2024 it donated a tonne of its produce to FareShare, providing...

Groundbreaking Centre of Excellence Produces the Goods for Food Charity

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Growing Kent & Medway

2 min read

Marks & Spencer recently visited the UK's first Centre of Excellence in glasshouse growing, based at Hadlow College, to observe the range of tomatoes being cultivated. The Thanet Earth Centre of Excellence @ Hadlow College , which...

Marks & Spencer Visits UK's First Glasshouse Centre of Excellence in Hadlow

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Serious Gaming

Play the Games

Our initiative with Canterbury Christ Church University aims to inspire young people to explore careers in horticulture through the medium of video games.

First-year BA Game Design students created engaging and educational games based on the UK's fruit supply chains.

Growing Kent & Medway

1 min read

How do we challenge the perception of a career in commercial horticulture, from wellies and wheelbarrows, to the realities of robotics and blockchains? Step in Serious Gaming. An idea conceived between Growing Kent & Medway, Locate in...

Could Serious Gaming entice a new generation into a career in fresh produce?

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Growing Kent & Medway

1 min read

Discover how Canterbury Christ Church University game design students collaborated with Growing Kent & Medway to create serious games that inspire young people to pursue horticulture careers. Lecturer Mehmet Erk discusses the project...

Mehmet Erk: Developing Horticultural Skills with Serious Games

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A Taste of Agri-Tech Careers

We partnered with the STEM Hub to offer young people aged 11-13 years an opportunity to explore a taste of careers in the Agri-Tech sector.

The event at Canterbury Christ Church University offered hands-on workshops to demonstrate different areas of agri-tech in food and farming, including AI monitoring for crop disease, 3D food printing, and genetics and breeding.

180

No. of children who attended the event.

10

Interactive workshops run by 9 providers.

11

schools from Kent and Medway represented.

87%

of students would like to attend more events like this.

Growing Kent & Medway

5 min read

Our recent STEM-focused event for secondary school children identified significant gaps in young people's awareness and understanding of the agri-tech sector. So how do we attract the next generation of talent and skills needed to...

Could a Skills Gap Hinder the Agri-Tech Sector's Growth Potential?

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Growing Kent & Medway

4 min read

Over 180 secondary school students experienced how science and technology impacts the food we grow at an event funded by Growing Kent & Medway on Friday 4 th July. The event, held at Canterbury Christ Church University and coordinated...

Students get taste of agri-tech careers at STEM food workshops

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