Thinking of Becoming a Tree Surgeon?

Andrew has been working in the sector for many years and regularly receives enquiries from people wanting to get into the business.  

He’s been very pleased to be able to offer training places, when the business has room for them, for 10 people in that time.  All of them have trained with Primary Tree Surgeons on the job as well as attending college or vocational training courses to make sure that they have the right combination of safe, skilled practice and experience.

Here’s our top tips if you’re looking to get into Tree Surgery:

1.  Tree Surgery is one of the most dangerous professions.  

There’s no short cut to learning the safe way to do things, and that means some study and assessment, either at college (Sparshalt www.sparsholt.ac.uk or Merrist Wood www.merristwood.ac.uk land based colleges) or during vocational training courses with good training suppliers.   

Primary Tree Surgeons works with Land Based Training in Mortimer (www.landbasedtraining.co.uk) , who are great suppliers of practical training and qualifications for the trainees who don’t follow the college route. 

2. It’s an outdoors job, so you need to love being out in all weathers!  The work is physically demanding so you need to be in good health, fit and strong.

3. Good Tree Surgeons don’t just climb and cut!  You need to be interested in the biology of the tree so you can take care of it properly in its environment.  There are some great books on the shelf to help with this, and useful (free) lectures and seminars provided by the local colleges and the trade body, the Arboricultural Association (www.trees.org.uk)

4. Good team working is vital!  Climbers and Groundsmen rely on a good working relationship to work safely, so you need to get along with people, be ready to get their backs and prepared to  communicate.

5. Getting some experience as a Groundsman is a great place to start.  The Groundsman role is a skilled job, planning the job with the climber, setting up the site, and ensuring the climber has all he needs in the tree.  Groundsmen need to be qualified to use and look after  the powered equipment – saws, chippers and hedgecutters, for example – and many Groundsmen these days are also qualified to perform aerial rescue in case of an accident in the tree.

Andrew’s committed to helping out young people trying to break into the industry.  If you want a chat about how to get into the business, give him a call on 07771 883061 or 01256 817369.