Exhilarating working holidays in the UK

You don’t need to take a sabbatical or buy expensive flights to enjoy a working break. Here’s our pick of some of the best the UK has to offer.

If you've been inspired by these stories of real-life working holidays, but you're not sure you're ready to commit to a full career break, then consider taking a short working holiday in the UK. 

Whether you’re guarding osprey nests in Scotland, lambing in Cumbria, or helping out with the harvest on an organic farm, a conservation holiday makes for an invigorating and rewarding break. You’ll discover talents you didn’t know you had, explore unspoilt places, make new friends and even return home with a new skill.

1. Plant our future forests near Loch Ness

Get back to nature and help restore Scotland’s Caledonian Forest, with Trees for Life. A week-long conservation holiday at seedlings, collecting pine cones for their seeds and planting saplings. You’ll sleep in basic bunk rooms in Dundreggan Lodge and evenings are spent using bat detectors, or sitting outside by the fire bowl and admiring the stars.

At Glen Affric Nature Reserve, you can spend a week surveying red squirrels as part of the program to reintroduce them to the wild, as well as tree planting. Explore the glen on your day off or, if you’re feeling energetic, climb a 3,000-foot Munro. The area is a mecca for wildlife lovers, with golden eagles and tawny owls.

You’ll sleep in rustic, mixed sex rooms in an eco-friendly bothy, lit by solar powered lighting. There’s no shower, but you can always have an exhilarating, if not chilly, wash in the river, then warm up in front of the wood burner. Seven-day breaks cost from £395, including veggie food and accommodation. Travel from Inverness station is also included.

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2. Go lambing in the Lake District

From lambing on a Cumbrian fell farm to learning how to build drystone walls, the National Trust’s working group holidays offer you the chance to get skilled up, whilst having an adventure. At Arlington Court in Devon you can spend three days clearing weeds and fixing fencing, before embarking on a three-day bush craft experience. You’ll learn how to build a brush shelter to sleep in and cook over an open fire, then the following night you’ll be sent to the other side of the estate to put your newfound skills to the test.

The seven-day Fell Farm Experience lets you get stuck into working with the Herdwick Ewes at Wasdale Head Fell Farm, as well as lambing. You’ll sleep in the former servants’ quarters for Wasdale Hall, on the edge of Wastwater Lake. It’s basic, but comfortable, and you’ll cook evening meals with the other volunteers. After a day’s work, take out a rowing boat and explore the waters.

National Trust working holidays range from two to seven nights and prices start from £160, including accommodation and food.

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3. Get green fingered on an organic farm

Pull on your wellies and help out on an organic farm, garden or vineyard with a stay organised through World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WOOFUK). In exchange for food and a place to lay your head, you’ll learn about and help with sustainable farming practises.

Activities vary from farm to farm, but include looking after livestock, gardening, milking, wine-making, bread-baking and harvesting. You’ll sleep in a spare room, tent or even yurt, and you’ll often eat with the host family. No money is exchanged between hosts and volunteers, and you’re normally expected work 30-35 hours a week.

To apply, you’ll need to pay a small annual membership fee to WOOFUK (currently £15). You can then access info on the farms looking for volunteers, and contact them directly. Most breaks are one or two weeks, depending on what you arrange with your host.

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4. Restore Britain’s waterways on a canal camp

Britain has over 2,500 miles of derelict canals, but the Waterways Recovery Group organise holidays rebuilding them. “Mud, sweat and beers” are promised, as you join 17 likeminded volunteers in repointing walls, laying bricks and restoring ancient locks. You might even get to drive a JCB.

Week-long Canal Camps costs from £70 and are offered at several UK locations. Volunteers are fuelled with three meals a day, plus plenty of cake, and you’ll sleep in village halls or scout huts. The working day is usually 9-5pm and by night there are boat trips, skittles competitions or drinks in the local pub.

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5. Conserve the Suffolk Coast

If you’re not a rough and ready type, Responsible Travel’s wildlife conservation break on the Suffolk coast might be more up your street. Guests sleep in a luxurious Edwardian house in Orford, complete with fluffy towels, crisp bed linen and rainfall showers.

By day, you and your group (numbers range from six to 12) will be taken by boat to Havergate Island, which is a haven for ducks, avocets, terns, as well as voles and shrews. Here you’ll clear beaches, study invertebrates and survey small mammals by setting humane traps, before releasing them again. An eight-night break costs from £850, including home-cooked food and restaurant meals.

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6. Survey red squirrels in Scotland  

From guarding osprey nests overnight in Scotland, to guiding visitors around a lighthouse in County Antrim, the RSPB offers revitalising volunteer breaks in 44 UK locations. Holidays range from a one-week break to eight-month internships and, depending on where you stay, you could find yourself pond dipping in Norfolk, drystone walling in Cumbria, monitoring marsh harriers in Humberside or rebuilding boardwalks and bird hides.

Experience isn’t necessary, although on some breaks it’s handy if you can tell a tree pipit from a nightjar. Adventurers will love staying in the lighthouse keeper’s cottage on Northumberland’s Coquet Island. Here, lighting is solar powered, heat is supplied by a driftwood log burner and there’s no mains water.

The RSPB doesn’t charge for its working holidays, and you’ll be put up in basic shared self-catered cottages, although you will need to provide your own food. Volunteers work five eight-hour days over a week.

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7. Monitor harvest mice in Dorset

Wild Days Conservation offer a series of working holidays around the UK, all geared towards protecting our natural habitats. Immerse yourself in Hardy Country with a break on one of Dorset’s Wildlife Trust’s reserves.

By day guests will monitor the local wood mice, harvest mice and water vole population for the Mammal Society, using cameras and humane traps. By night you’ll stay in a honey hued barn conversion and learn how to identify different species of bats and moths.

Food is taken seriously here – you’ll drink locally ground coffee, eat fish and chips on Dorset beaches and be cooked meals from locally sourced ingredients by the in-house chef. Prices start at £690 for four nights.

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