Going far

Liam hopes to build big career from his Shetland base

Shetlander Liam Tulloch, 25, farming by working summers with his father-in-law Colin Hughson, who is a long-term employee of Scottish Sea Farms.

Liam joined the company full BSc in physics, and has since com with the company.

He decided when he’d completed his degree that he wanted to go back home, the initial plan being to work there for a while

‘But I kind of got to enjoy it wanting to work outside, I’m quite interested in marine biology, though I didn’t study that at university.’

working for about a year for the company, attending the working through the course assignments on his own.

by SSF on the same site and she embarked on an apprenticeship at the same time.

‘There were quite a few of us in our group, all working for SSF – I think they decided to roll it out.

‘The course work could be done in college – they said if it’s bad weather and you can’t get out on the site you can come to college and get help if you needed it.

‘You carry on doing your job and if you’re doing something like a harvest or a lice treatment the assessor would come from the college and watch you doing that job.’

But the actual on the job training is from a colleague, said Liam, and the company has a huge input into the training.

course work in just three months and has been described as an ‘outstanding’ student.

‘I went into it open-minded and tried my best to do well. I don’t think having a university degree really made a difference and a school leaver could be outstanding on the course too.

‘I think by having a degree I look at things more analytically but I don’t believe it helped me that much in what I‘m doing at the moment although some of the skills I learnt at uni might be useful later on.’

Last summer, he was named the Marks & land Show in Edinburgh.

Would he recommend the apprenticeship scheme to others coming into the industry?

‘If you’re a brand new employee it would be very informative, but there was a lot I knew, which is probably why I got through it so fast.’

to stay in Shetland if possible but is ambitious to take on more senior jobs in the company.

‘Ideally, I’d like to climb the ladder and get a site management role, or above that, in the future. I like being in a relatively new industry, where you can contribute to developing it so much more.’