A trio of students with ambitions to work in rural surveying are on a two-week placement with rural estate agents Stags at their offices in Tiverton and Exeter.

The students are learning all about the intricacies of the rural surveying side of the business.

The students are Emily Wray, on her summer break from Harper Adams University in Shropshire, Melanie Gregory, a student at the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester, and Codie Clark, of West Buckland School in North Devon.

Stags professional partner in the Tiverton office Matthew Wilcox, hosting the placement, said: “They are all on RICS [Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors] degrees to become rural chartered surveyors so the placement is about finding out about the agricultural side of surveying, involving them in doing valuations for tax purposes, going to farm auctions, assisting with sales of farms and land and assisting with planning applications.

“They are with me on the rural professional side and will be doing inspections for properties and farms. They are all doing a project in the background over the two weeks. It is a study where they give advice to a farm on inheritance issues.”