Agricultural Consultant Dumfries, Scotland
Job description
Role Overview
An exciting and diverse role providing business, strategic and technical advice, and farm management consultancy to a wide range of farm businesses across the whole of Scotland.
Team Overview
Savills culture is one of trust and respect, teamwork and collaboration. Our teams and our clients benefit when we work together, listening to and learning from each other. Above all, we value the motivation of our people. This is evidenced by our well-being offer, our capability to facilitate flexible working, and our support to enjoy a healthy work-life balance.
We are looking for talented agricultural consultants to join our growing team in Scotland, primarily in our Perth office but flexible on location for the right candidate.
It is a hugely exciting time to be involved in agricultural consultancy. Rarely have so many factors combined to act as drivers for change, with significant climatic, economic and political opportunities and challenges.
With consultants working across the whole of the UK and located in around 30 rural offices, Savills can claim one of the largest agribusiness teams in the UK. Savills Food and Farming provides consultancy services on all aspects of farming and food production and rural land use, with our clients including farmers, rural estates, public bodies and rural property investors.
Our Food and Farming teams cover all aspects of food and farming from both a consultancy and farm management side. The team of 10 consultants across Scotland also work very closely with the other teams in Savills to be able to provide clients with a multi-disciplinary and holistic approach to farming and land management.
Our teams spend a good proportion of their time out on farms and land visiting clients' farms. No two days are the same and the variety of our clients offers exciting challenges and real opportunities to make a significant difference. We have many long-standing relationships both with our internal and external clients which we value and nurture through the offering of our expertise and pragmatic advice.
Key Responsibilities
- Consistently deliver high performance in terms of client service, profitability, and compliance
- Carry out Farm Consultancy and Management on behalf of retained clients, as well as providing one-off consultancy to new clients.
- Provide advice and management of contract farming agreements
- Prepare financial budgets and cash flows, monitoring forecasts against actual income and expenditure
- Preparation of annual management reports
- Completion of SAF claims and ensuring Cross Compliance regulations are met
- Design and management of Rural Development Contracts
- Provide advice on how emerging regulations and practices may affect business plans
- Contribute to the development of the Food & Farming department through networking internally and externally, building close relationships with existing and new clients and their professional advisors
- Support the Head of Food & Farming in Scotland with the performance management of the department
- Actively lead business development opportunities for the office and provide support at Regional (Scottish) and National (UK) level
- To contribute to and support business development initiatives and tenders, targeting and winning new business, and agreeing the scope of instructions and fees as appropriate
- Take an active role in the marketing and promotion of agribusiness at office, national and UK level
- To help promote and deliver the firm’s compliance procedures and standards
Key Skills
- Well-connected and perceived within the industry
- Proven record of ability to manage time effectively, prioritising tasks to ensure deadlines are met
- Ability to quickly build rapport and long-standing client and colleague relationships, at all levels
- An interest and track-record in generating new business
- Possesses vision and is able to develop complex strategies and solutions
- Commits to challenging goals and delivers consistently against these
- Financial and commercial acumen with excellent planning, budgeting and operational reporting skills
- Delivers efficiency in addition to effectiveness
- Self-starter, who relishes challenges and strives for the best
- Team player and proven leader who builds relationships and consults with others, quickly establishing trust and credibility
- Diplomatic and confident with a positive outlook
- Ethical with strong integrity
- Creative and lateral thinker, with the ability to problem solve and focus on solutions
- Commercially aware, but with the ability to vary approach dependent on circumstances
- Presentable and approachable and ability to engage with a variety of audiences
- Self-motivated, goal-driven individual able to prioritise, work under pressure and meet deadlines
- Ability to work in a clear and logical fashion, with good organisational skills and attention to detail
- A proactive approach to work and a strategic thinker for departmental policy and strategy, both putting forward ideas and delivering
Find out more about Savills offer
Recruitment agencies
Savills only pay agency fees where we have a signed agreement in place and that agency has been previously contacted and directed by a member of our recruitment team. We do not pay agency fees when speculative and unsolicited CVs are submitted to Savills or any of our employees other than via our careers website and through our recruitment process. If this is not adhered to, agency fees will not be paid.
Submission of any unsolicited CVs or proposals to Savills will be deemed evidence of full and unlimited acceptance of this approach.
