Animal Management is an exciting industry, worth over £2 billion to the UK economy.
We have launched Career Excellence Hubs, which gives a greater focus on preparing our learners for industry and we would be delighted to welcome you along to our new Animal Management Career Excellence Hub.
Whether it’s liaising with employers in the industry to make sure we’re teaching you relevant and up-to-date skills, creating the best facilities and digital platforms in the region for you to study in, or selecting the top teachers with current industry experience – our Animal Management Career Excellence Hub is focused on providing you with the right learning environment to help you reach your potential.
We are about preparing you for a career - what we offer is far more than just a course. Weston College is a diverse and inclusive learning environment, and we reward our students when they go above and beyond their abilities and expectations.
This guide will introduce you to our Animal Management Career Excellence Hub.
Starting salary of newly-qualified vets is approximately £30,500
Zoologist can earn up to £48,000 a year
Over 59% of UK households have pets
Over 20,000 members of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons
WHAT IS THE CAREER EXCELLENCE HUB?
As a Weston College student you will become part of our exciting new Career Excellence Hub in Animal Management.
This means you will take part in a study programme with lots of career boosting benefits, all with the aim of giving you the opportunity to become career ready!
Our mission statement is ‘creating brighter futures’ and we passionately believe in helping you reach your ultimate goal, focussing on your future employability and developing the skills you need to have a successful career.
So, whether you’re a school leaver or looking to study a full-time programme, our Career Excellence Hubs will help you stand out from the crowd and get ahead!
Career Ideas
Animal Management is an exciting and varied industry, so you might not know exactly which route you’d like to take yet. Here are a few different career options for you, with one of them potentially becoming your future career...
Veterinary Nurse Veterinarians Farmers Animal Care Services Occupations n.e.c.
OUR ANIMAL MANAGEMENT CAREER EXCELLENCE HUB IS ENDORSED BY:
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WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?
You’ll get to study in state-of-the-art learning spaces at Puxton Park, using the latest industry standard equipment, with concepts and ideas delivered by lecturers who have a wealth of industry experience.
We will equip you with 21st Century employability skills to progress you onto your next career destination. This will include, working on ‘real world learning’ using employer briefs and real-life case studies and scenarios to encourage up to the minute workplace problem solving.
Upskilled with the latest digital tools and technologies as a Microsoft Showcase College.
In a rapidly changing world of work, your identity, professional networks, and digital capability will increasingly influence your future career opportunities. We’ll prepare you to stand out by showcasing your work and achievements.
If competitions are in your sights, you will also have the option to compete against the best in the UK through our links with WorldSkills UK.
You will be supported with outstanding wrap-around pastoral support via our Wellbeing@Weston model which provides all learners with access to highly qualified teams of welfare and mental health practitioners and resources all designed to support you achieve your career goals.
Inspired with personalised 1:1 Careers Education Information Advice and Guidance, helping you look at all the options available to you for progression to the next step on your career journey.
Regardless of what your career goal is or whether you simply need to know what your options are - our team of highly trained careers advisors (Level 6 and above) offer relaxed, impartial advice to get you where you want to be helping you figure out the best route to achieve your dream career.
Empowered to learn more about your own mental health and wellbeing as part of your journey with us. Our ethos of Body and Mind will help you learn to develop coping strategies, build resilience, and access the proven benefits of exercise for wellness.
As well as all of the above benefits of being part of one of our Career Excellence Hubs, Weston College also offers you a fun, social experience designed for you to meet likeminded people.
INDUSTRY SKILLS
Through our Career Excellence Hubs you will develop skills for life, which will help you gain employment once you have completed your study programme. We will help you to gain both hard skills, and soft skills, which employers have highlighted as keys skills in this sector, but what exactly are they?
Hard skills are the measurable ones that you list on your CV, and that you may hold certification in. Whereas soft skills are interpersonal, and help you to develop your character, which will benefit you in building relationships with co-workers and customers.
Alongside input from our Career Excellence Hub employer partners and advisory boards, we as a college have invested in powerful Labour Market Intelligence tools to further guarantee that our curriculum meets employer need. Not only do we use all this information to inform our curriculum design, but it is also used to inform our skills and individual development programme called ID that’s purpose is to accelerate your progress towards your career goal and next steps by equipping you with the complete package of knowledge, experiences and skills.
We have built them into your study programme, meaning you will learn and develop these skills with us:
Hard Skills
- Nursing
- Husbandry
- Leadership
- Customer Service
- Sales
Soft Skills
- Communication
- Customer Service
- Compassion
- Teamwork
- Problem Solving
English and maths are also a very important part of Animal Management, here are some of the key skills they provide:
English
- Reading and writing feeding/healthcare/medication plans
- Reading/identifying key points/comprehending/summarising legislation, licensing authority and welfare reports, zoo inspections etc.
- Respond to customer enquiries, complaints or requests for information
- Produce marketing material and signage
- Write risk assessments and health and safety reports
- Complete medication and healthcare reports and records
- Write customer invoices/receipts
Maths
- Rounding when dealing with weights and measures – including to numbers of decimal places
- Money – calculating entry costs for families, discounts etc. for zoos. Customer bills for vets/dog groomers/dog walkers/animal retail
- Time (students have set times allocated for duties, but also managing appointments in vets/dog groomers etc.)
- Temperature and humidity
- Profit and loss
- Fractions/decimals/percentages/ratios for animal feeds (real example – 8 meerkats have 100g of live food three times each day. Live food should make up 78% of their diet, so calculate how much fruit and veg they should have. - Another real example – rabbits have 60g of hard feed a day each. There are three rabbits in one enclosure, but only two bowls, so our learners have to calculate how much per bowl)
- Weight, including conversions for monitoring health and providing correct food
- Measuring dimensions – for example planning accommodation to welfare regulations based on the size of the animal, monitoring growth
- Size conversions – cm to inches to hands for equines
- Drip infusion rates (vet nursing)
- Area and volume – calculating appropriate enclosures/accommodation based on sizeof animal
- Calculating capacity, for example the water required to fill a fish tank
- Calculating quantities of food/supplements/medicines based on weight and water
- treatments based on volume or capacity
- Charts and graphs to measure weight, growth, visitor numbers, expenditure, income
- Tables for feeding plans and recording medications used
- Scale – feed quantities for different sized or different number of animals
- Rearranging formulae – medication calculations
PROGRESSION ROUTES
Once you’ve completed your course, there are several options for you to further develop your skills and knowledge...
If you completed a Level 1, or Level 2 course, you can continue to progress to the next level course. Click here to go back to our course page, and discover the relevant course route, for you.
An apprenticeship is a fantastic way of entering the animal industry. Not only will you get the opportunity to get your foot in the door with a local or national company, you will also be able to earn while you learn. Through apprenticeships you will work closely with an experienced professional to develop and practice your skills, all whist receiving the benefits that being a student brings. See available apprenticeships here.
We have several degree options on offer at UCW, which will allow you to further develop your knowledge. UCW is rated as Gold in the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework, meaning the teaching, learning and opportunities we provide are of the highest quality in Britain. There are several degree options available in animal related courses, which could lead you on to your dream career of working with animals. You can find the full UCW course list, here.
