Career development for young people

Grow your career

Connect to Grow - THE place for information on careers, courses and jobs in horticulture

Our world would be nothing without plants. They feed us, keep us warm and dry, clean our air and provide us with a beautiful, green environment to live in. Working with plants, from designing and building a new city park to developing new food crops can be incredibly rewarding and there is a wealth of career options to choose from. GROW Careers is your starting point to find out more.

Grow is an initiative set up by a group of influential organisations within the horticulture industry to inform people about horticultural careers and the range of fantastic opportunities horticulture has to offer.

The web portal is backed by a schools pack which includes series of posters and careers information leaflets, including hoticultural career opportunities in:

  • Plant science and technology
  • Art and design
  • Business, production and food
  • Heritage and conservation
  • Sports, leisure and green spaces
  • Health and wellbeing
https://www.horticulture.org.uk/grow-careers/

Careers inspiration

  • RHS horticultural careers inspiration: ‘I love my job’ expert videos. Click here.
  • RHS Horticulture Matters (2014) report. Click here.
  • YoungHort - for school leavers looking to develop horticultural careers. http://younghort.com.
  • Through social enterprise - www.participationworks.org.uk/resources
  • Through community ennterprise projects - www.urbanfoodroutes.org.uk

Corporate Volunteering Days

We have teamed up with Capital Growth to use their corporate volunteering online match-making service. It enables businesses to find opportunities for employees to give a hand in gardens for a day or half-a-day, including helping schools. Schools can register their space on the Corporate Connect map and invite businesses and host a corporate volunteering day. 

Corporate Connect

Capital growth has updated it's entirely free ‘Corporate Connect’ service. This corporate volunteering match-making service enables organisations to find opportunities for a team of employees for a day. A selection of community spaces is listed, including schools in need of extra hands to get their food garden going.

Corporate groups will be able to contribute money toward tools and garden-related material, and Capital Growth will support you to organise a successful day. We are promoting the map to a wide range of corporate groups so if you are interested to get extra hands to get your space going, sign up and get your space on the map now.

For schools, to get your space on the Connect Map:

1) Sign in to Capital Growth members area (if you need a reminder of your password email )
2) Click on the ‘Connect’ box on the bottom left
3) Fill in the short form to describe what needs to be done in you food garden and when you could welcome a group
4) All done!

Corporate Connect Map