The National Trust is committed to providing training opportunities for new recruits into heritage gardening.

We care for more than 200 gardens and landscape parks across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The conservation and restoration of historic gardens would be impossible without gardeners trained in the craft and techniques necessary to care for these special gardens.

Aware of the need to ensure that this knowledge was not lost but handed down from one generation to the next, the National Trust started its own three-year gardeners' training programme in 1991, known as Careership.

In total, 13 new trainee gardeners, from very different walks of life, join the National Trust to start the programme each year.

The trainees are employed from September each year for a period of three years. The apprenticeship is open to those aged over 16 years and is designed for those with no prior vocational qualification.

© NTPL / Ian Shaw

All students are offered placements at National Trust gardens under the guidance of experienced Head Gardeners, combined with study periods at Reaseheath College in Cheshire.

Many students have continued their careers as National Trust gardeners and some have gone on to become Head Gardeners themselves.

Other graduates have gone on to work at horticultural organisations including the Botanic Gardens of both Edinburgh and Bristol, RHS Rosemore and the Eden Project in Cornwall.

The National Gardens Scheme (NGS) makes a generous annual donation towards the funding of these trainees.

Many National Trust gardens open their gates each year for the NGS. The cost of admission on these days goes directly to help raise funds for all the scheme's beneficiaries.

Find out more about the Careership programme

For more information about vacancies on the Careership programme, contact us on 0870 240 0274 or by email.

Sponsor a Careership Trainee

If you would like to sponsor a Careership Trainee and help us grow our own gardeners, please contact Gill Raikes, Fundraising Director, by email.