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The career path of a ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ alumnus as a young auctioneer has been profiled in the Farmers Guardian podcast.

Host Ellie Latham spoke with Sion Roberts, from Carmarthenshire, who graduated from his BSc (Hons) Rural Enterprise and Land Management degree last September.

Farmers’ son Sion is now working at Clee Tompkinson and Francis in a Graduate Rural Surveyor role and explained why he decided to pursue a career in auctioneering – and how he got there.

He said: “I live on a farm, my dad is a farmer – we keep beef and sheep here, we have some Suffolk ewes and Lim Cross suckler cows. I was brought up in the agricultural background – very much so.”

Sion explained how, shortly before starting his studies at Harper Adams, where he had been intending to study Land Management, he had taken up a role as a drover at Llandovery Market – and said: “I guess that’s where the interest then just slowly increased in the job.

“I was always going to do the Rural Enterprise and Land Management course at Harper Adams – purely because of the broadness of the course, really. It drew a lot of interests of mine in the various topics, most definitely – and the growing interest in livestock markets, fortunately, went hand-in-hand with the course I was hoping to do.”

Talking about his typical week, Sion said: “Talking from an agricultural and an auctioneer’s point of view, then you are, daily, speaking to farmers – you are often speaking to buyers as well, keeping up to date with the trade – you have got to be that middleman, you’ve got to be informative – informative of the buyers, informative to the farmers – making sure that everyone is on the same page.”

Asked to offer tips to aspiring auctioneers hoping to follow in his footsteps, Sion added: “Be willing to learn, I guess – it’s always the thing with any career, isn’t it?

“Be willing to learn, willing to listen – no doubt everybody’s got their own opinion on particular stock – especially with auctioneering, it’s managing expectations, managing clients, managing opinions as such – being willing to discuss in a professional manner – especially with farmers and buyers, you have got to have that professional relationship, but also it does a lot of good by having that friendship in the job, which makes it much more enjoyable, and a better relationship as well.”

Listen to the whole podcast here, which also features an interview with Zanna Dennis from the Livestock Auctioneers Association explaining more about routes into the industry, including the Livestock Market Operations and Management course which runs in conjuction with Harper Adams: