LENs Lead Agronomist

3Keel LLP; Witney; Hybrid; GBP 45,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a leading sustainability consultancy as a Lead Agronomist, supporting the adoption of regenerative farming practices across regions. The role involves overseeing agronomic development, ensuring high-quality support to farmers, and engaging with diverse stakeholders to drive resilience in farming.

Benefits

30 days paid annual leave

Pension scheme with 5% company contribution

Employee NHS Cash Top Up health insurance

Three days of paid volunteering time

Annual training budget

Qualifications

• Expert knowledge in agriculture and agronomy.
• Outstanding project management skills with significant experience.
• Experience with commercial farming systems.

Responsibilities

• Ensure successful delivery of agronomic support to farmers.
• Develop farmer support programs and group training.
• Maintain excellent relationships with stakeholders.

Skills

Project Management

Agronomy

Natural Resource Management

Stakeholder Engagement

Advisory Services

Education

Degree in Agriculture or Agronomy

Job description

Who we’re looking for…

Role: LENs Lead Agronomist

Location: Oxford/Long Hanborough/London (remote also considered)

Business unit: LENs

Contract: Permanent, full time (part-time also considered)

Salary range:
£45,000-55,000 pa

What you’ll be doing…

You will be joining a company at an exciting transitional stage as it shifts from start-up to scale-up, delivering landscape resilience in the UK and EU and €24m to farmers since 2021.

In addition to leveraging financial support, LENs wishes to expand and strengthen its technical support service to farmers, as part of the standard delivery package. The purpose of this is to support farmers to adopt regenerative farming practices, breaking down barriers to adoption, developing farm management plans to drive on-farm productivity and improve overall farm business resilience. The LENs technical support package includes both individual support and group activities, the latter to encourage knowledge sharing and peer learning from other participating farms in the same region facing similar challenges. LENs is a signatory to the EARA principles on regenerative agriculture.

The Lead Agronomist’s role is critical to:

• Ensuring the successful delivery of the technical agronomic support to farmers in all regions to underpin correct implementation of the measures.
• Devise and roll out a programme of one to one farmer support and group training and events, appropriate to each region.
• Ensuring an excellent standard of delivery adhered to by all partners and subcontractors.
• Foster and support peer networks on regenerative farming and land management, including mentorship and the use of social media and IT platforms.

Responsibilities of the role…

Agronomic development supporting the regional LENs trades:

• Research and develop a list of practices adapted to various farm systems (e.g. dairy, livestock, horticulture etc), including cost of adoption and success factors
• Support regional teams during farmer onboarding stages on agronomic and technical matters.
• Update the regional technical manuals. Provide guidance on the definition and implementation of practices, ensuring the scope, eligibility and payment basis is clear.
• Support regional LENs Operators in identifying and vetting relevant third party service providers to provide the technical services, training and support.
• Lead delivery oversight of technical support activities, including contract management of technical service providers in all regions, in collaboration with regional LENs Operators.
• Work with farmers, support farm trials funded through LENs, disseminating findings.
• Ensure that LENs measures are implemented in line with the technical guidance, across all LENs regions, in the UK and EU.
  

Stakeholder engagement:

• Work as part of the LENs dynamic team and programme, develop the agronomic programme in line with LENs vision and mission, especially the LENs Regen Pathway.
• Build and maintain excellent relationships. Regularly engage with a wide range of stakeholders in the UK and the EU, including farmers, farmer producer organisations, agricultural research and academic institutes, service providers, and LENs funders.

Operational context:

• Stay up-to-date on UK (all devolved nations) and EU policy changes that could impact the context, environment and delivery of LENs (for example, public support offered to farmers).

External positioning:

• Represent LENs at meetings and forums, to advance collaboration and support.
• Generate written content and case studies for reporting and wider communication activities

The important stuff (essential requirements)...

• Expertknowledge of agriculture, agronomy, natural resources management andworking knowledge of climate change and how farming practices are affected by and affect it.
  
• Outstanding project management skills, with a significant number of years of experience
• Experience with commercial farming systems in UK and European countries (preferably with in-country experience).
• Good understanding of technical extension and farm advisory services in UK and European countries
• Experience in designing and leading others in the implementation of technical guidance for farm businesses.
• Organised and systematic approach to work.
• Proven track record of managing others (peers and subcontractors) to deliver high quality outputs from complex projects.
• Self-starter and driven.
• Strong external presentation skills and client relationship management ability.
• Flexible, versatile and tolerant in a fast-growing programme environment with the ability to work effectively under pressure and to deadlines.
• Adept at supporting colleagues with technical systems and processes

Nice to haves…

• Experience in farm business economics
• Experience in crop and livestock sciences
• Experience in Monitoring and Evaluation
• Experience with developing and/or carry out work against specific Standards, Certifications and Sustainability Disclosure reporting frameworks
• Additional language skills

Above all else, we are looking for a great new member for our team. We are aware that some individuals feel they can only apply for roles if they meet almost 100% of the criteria, where the threshold might feel lower to others, so if you are considering applying for the role, but you are doubting your suitability and don’t feel you tick absolutely all the boxes, we encourage you to please apply anyway.

We are committed to offering equal opportunities and to creating a workplace where a diverse mix of talented people want to come, stay and deliver their best work. We encourage applications from applicants of all backgrounds, and from those who represent any diversity of gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability and all other characteristics. We want to play our part in increasing diversity within the sustainability sector, recognising that there is some way to go. We take our role in contributing to change in this area very seriously. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.

About 3Keel...

3Keel is a market-leading, specialist sustainability consultancy. We have grown organically since our founding in 2013, becoming a high impact team. The business is structured to address key sustainability issues, and we focus on innovations and coalition-building to develop approaches that challenge the status quo. We work with many of the global leading businesses on sustainability, and 3Keel is recognised by the FT as one of the UK’s leading Managing Consultancies for Sustainability. 3Keel has been a B-Corp since 2020.

More about LENs…
https://landscapeenterprisenetworks.com/

3Keel also offers...

• A friendly team of individuals from many walks of life, all constantly striving for excellence and committed to making a difference in sustainability - and having fun along the way!
• Genuine work-life flexibility for people at different life stages, with a well-established hybrid working culture
• Competitive salary depending on experience (based on 37.5 hours working week)
• 30 days paid annual leave per annum (pro rata for part time staff) increasing with the number of years at business.
• Pension scheme with 5% company contribution, salary sacrifice option and personal investment/savings platform
• Unpaid sabbatical leave, subject to qualifying criteria
• Employee NHS Cash Top Up health insurance scheme
• Employee assistance and mental health support programmes
• Death in service cover
• Access to office space in various different locations in Oxford, Bristol and London
• Three days of paid volunteering time per year for each staff member
• Generous maternity, paternity and sick pay/leave
• Annual training budget per employee
• 5 days for study per year
• Portion of annual profits donated to charity annually
• Salary sacrifice schemes for bikes (cycle to work scheme) electric vehicles and other tech

How to apply...Please apply with a CV and covering letter (not more than one side) outlining what makes you a good fit for the role.

Application deadline: 30th July 2025

Data privacy...

Please note that any personal data submitted to 3Keel Group Ltd as part of the job application process will be processed in accordance with the GDPR and related UK data protection legislation, for more information regarding our privacy statement please see here https://www.3keel.com/privacy-statement/