People, Knowledge & Community

Jobs, Labour & Seasonal Workers

Recruit, roster, pay correctly and sponsor compliantly.

Labour is the dominant cost in horticulture and a growing constraint everywhere else. This module runs recruitment, rostering, time recording and payroll integration, and handles the Seasonal Worker sponsorship and agricultural wages obligations that carry real legal consequence when they go wrong.

Start with Jobs & Labour See how it works

12 capabilities
2 linked schemes
Offline capable

12: Capabilities in this module
5: Interactive tools
2: Linked support schemes
5: Data integrations
5: Measures reported

The ground reality

What is actually happening in jobs & labour in the UK

The 2026 Seasonal Worker visa allocation confirmed 41,000 horticulture places alongside 1,900 for poultry, down slightly on the previous year, with an application fee rising to £340 and a revised permitted stay of up to six months in a rolling ten-month period. The Skilled Worker route is little used in farming because of the salary threshold, and worker welfare is policed by the labour market enforcement authorities.

Figures are as published at the time of writing. Farm policy and payment rates change frequently — verify against the primary source before relying on any number here.

In the field

Jobs & labour, as it actually looks

Photography from working UK holdings alongside the interface that records it. Every frame below is a commissioned slot: the brief is stated until the photograph is taken.

Jobs & Labour — a walkthrough

A working pass through jobs & labour: entering the record once, and watching it appear in the evidence pack, the calendar and the scheme application without being typed again.

Film in production

Captions · Audio described

0:00 What the module is for
0:48 Entering the record
2:05 Where it appears next
3:20 The evidence pack

Photography slots state their own brief until the shot is commissioned, so the layout never shifts when real images arrive.

Capabilities

What Jobs & Labour does

Every capability below is built on the same underlying record, so entering something once is enough for it to appear wherever it is needed.

Record and plan

Job posting and applicant management across permanent, seasonal and casual roles
Rostering by task, skill and certification requirement
Time and attendance recording with mobile and offline capture

Operate and monitor

Piece rate and hourly rate calculation with minimum wage floor checking
Agricultural wages requirements where devolved rules apply
Seasonal Worker sponsorship record keeping and compliance evidence

Comply and evidence

Right to work verification and document retention
Worker welfare, accommodation and transport records
Payroll integration with enterprise cost allocation

Analyse and improve

Contractor and labour provider engagement with licence verification
Health and safety induction and toolbox talk records
Labour requirement forecasting from the cropping and harvest plan

Interactive

Tools you actually use, not screens you read

These are working interfaces inside the module — maps, calculators, planners and dashboards that respond to your own holding data.

Labour requirement forecast by week generated from the crop plan

Tool

Roster builder with skill and certification matching

Builder

Piece rate versus minimum wage checker per worker per period

Wizard

Sponsorship compliance dashboard with document status

Dashboard

Labour cost per tonne or per hectare analysis

Tool

End to end

How Jobs & Labour runs, start to finish

The module is modelled as a state machine, so at any point the business knows exactly which stage every record is at and what has to happen next.

1

Forecast labour requirement from the crop plan

This is where the record starts, and getting it right here removes work at every later stage.
2

Recruit through the appropriate route

The platform prompts only for what this stage genuinely needs, and carries everything forward.
3

Verify right to work and sponsorship obligations

Conflicts with scheme rules, regulatory windows and existing commitments are flagged here rather than discovered later.
4

Induct and record health and safety training

Capture works offline, so this stage is completed in the field rather than remembered afterwards.
5

Roster against skills and certification

Everything recorded at this point becomes evidence automatically, in every format that will later ask for it.
6

Record time and calculate pay with floor checking

This is the stage most businesses currently do twice, once for the operation and once for the paperwork.
7

Pay and allocate cost to enterprise

Results feed the whole-farm view, so the effect of this stage is visible against the rest of the business.
8

Retain compliance records for inspection

The cycle closes here, and what is learned is carried into next season's plan rather than lost.

Who uses it

Built around four real jobs, not one generic user

Each of these people needs something different from the same record. The module is designed so none of them has to work around the others.

Horticultural employer

200 seasonal workers

Needs sponsorship compliance and minimum wage floors evidenced.

Farm supervisor

Daily rostering

Needs to assign only workers certified for the task.

Seasonal worker

On a sponsored visa

Needs transparent hours, pay and conditions.

Labour provider

Supplying workers

Needs licence and compliance evidence available to clients.

Schemes and funding

Support schemes this module works with

Agrivencia holds these schemes as data, so eligibility, payment rates, caps and windows update the day they change rather than at the next software release.

United Kingdom

Seasonal Worker Route

Provide temporary immigration permission for seasonal agricultural work.

Annual allocation with in-year operation. Home Office with scheme operators England

Farming Transformation Fund

Fund larger capital projects that transform farm productivity, water management or value addition.

Round-based by theme. Defra / Rural Payments Agency

Rates, caps and windows change frequently and sometimes without notice. Always confirm against the current published scheme rules before applying.

Measurement

How you will know it is working

The module reports against these measures from the day it is switched on, so the value is demonstrable rather than assumed.

01Labour cost per unit of output
02Hours worked against forecast
03Minimum wage compliance rate
04Sponsorship compliance status
05Worker retention through the season

Work

Roles on UK holdings

Permanent, seasonal and contract work, with the pay basis and the statutory position stated plainly — including where the Seasonal Worker visa route applies and what it obliges an employer to do.

Roles on UK holdings, with type, pay basis and the statutory position
Role	Type	Pay basis	What to know
Herdsperson	Permanent	Salary	Accommodation often part of the package; the offset rules are specific.
Tractor driver	Seasonal	Hourly	Working time and rest break rules apply during harvest.
Harvest operative	Seasonal	Hourly	Seasonal Worker visa route where applicable.
Agronomy assistant	Permanent	Salary	BASIS training usually expected within the first year.
Relief milker	Contract	Per milking	Self-employed status must be genuine; the tests are strict.
Farm secretary	Part time	Hourly	Often shared across several holdings.

What an employer has to do

National Minimum and Living Wage Rates change each April. Accommodation offset is capped and counts toward the calculation.
Agricultural Wages Order Still in force in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with different grades and rates in each.
Right to work checks Required before the first day, with a statutory excuse only if done correctly.
Employer's liability insurance Compulsory, and the certificate must be accessible to employees.
Gangmaster licensing Required for labour providers in agriculture; using an unlicensed provider is an offence.

Find

Find advisers and consultants

Filter by type, nation, distance and accreditation. Results are ranked by relevance to your holding once your holding record exists, and alphabetically before that.

6 records shown from the platform’s own register

Module Education, Skills & CPD Points, certificates and competence, tracked to expiry. Core
Module Knowledge Exchange & Farmer Clusters What worked on the farm down the road, evidenced rather than remembered. Core
Module Jobs, Labour & Seasonal Workers Recruit, roster, pay correctly and sponsor compliantly. Core
Module Community, Forums & Expert Q&A Ask the question. Get an answer from someone who has done it. Core
Module Rural Wellbeing & Farm Safety Signposting to real support, and a safety record that prevents the next one. Core
Module Research, Trials & Open Data Farms as research sites, with the data flowing both ways. Core

Questions answered

What people ask about Jobs & Labour

Does this replace the software I already use?

Not necessarily. Agrivencia integrates with authoritative sources and mainstream packages rather than insisting on replacing them. Where an incumbent does one job well, the platform connects to it; where the job spans several systems and nobody does it, the platform does it.

Will it work where I have no signal?

Yes. Field capture in Jobs & Labour is offline first, storing locally and synchronising when a connection returns. Only around a fifth of UK farms report reliable signal across the whole holding, so this is a design assumption rather than a feature.

What happens when the scheme rules change?

Scheme rules are held as data rather than code, so a rate change, a cap change or a window closure is a content update that takes effect the same day. The platform also alerts you to what the change does to your own position.

Who owns the data I put in?

You do. The Farm Data Charter gives you a complete export in open formats at any time, and every instance of data sharing requires an explicit, revocable consent that is visible in your account.

Does it work if I farm across a border?

Yes, and that is one of the main reasons the platform exists. A business with land in more than one nation sees one reconciled view rather than two portals, with obligations and deadlines from both administrations in a single calendar.

Can my agronomist or land agent use it too?

Yes. You grant scoped, time-limited access per holding and per module, and you can revoke it in one click. Advisers never get a shared password or a blanket view.

What is the biggest limitation of this module?

Minimum wage breach through piece rates. Prevented by per-period floor checking. We would rather state that plainly than let you discover it after signing.

Documents

Take it away with you

Everything here is printable and works on a kitchen table with no signal. Where a document asks for an email address, it says so on the button rather than after you press it.

Handbook

Rostering, Piece Rates and Sponsorship: Farm Labour Compliance in Practice

PDF · UK · updated on scheme change

The practical handbook for jobs & labour: what the rules require, what the evidence has to show, and the mistakes that cost people money.

Checklist

jobs & labour — evidence checklist

PDF · one page · printable

Every document an audit or a claim asks for, in the order it is asked for, with the validity period of each.

Template

jobs & labour — record template

XLSX and CSV

The record structure the module uses, as a spreadsheet, so a business not yet on the platform can start keeping it correctly today.

Reference

Data model reference

PDF · technical

Entities, fields and integration points for jobs & labour, for advisers and software partners.

Because everything shares one record, adding a neighbouring module usually costs less work than it saves.

Education, Skills & CPD Points, certificates and competence, tracked to expiry. Knowledge Exchange & Farmer Clusters What worked on the farm down the road, evidenced rather than remembered. Community, Forums & Expert Q&A Ask the question. Get an answer from someone who has done it. Rural Wellbeing & Farm Safety Signposting to real support, and a safety record that prevents the next one. Research, Trials & Open Data Farms as research sites, with the data flowing both ways.

See Jobs & Labour running on your own holding

Thirty minutes, using your parcels, your schemes and your enterprises rather than a sample farm. No obligation and no sales script — if it does not fit your business we will say so.

Free tier available
No card required
Your data stays yours

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