An external antenna tuner is great to have (I have one) but my used Yaesu FT1000 rig (transceiver) can tune most of my antennas with its internal tuner. So depending what rig you get, you may not actually need an external antenna tuner until you are want to play around with more sophisticated antenna setups. The internal tuner is a very nice convenient feature to have. It can memorize 3 (or more) tuner values for each band and then extrapolate the settings for the rest of the band. If your antenna is anywhere near a match to the rig, this provides excellent results with almost zero effort. The only time I switch on the antenna tuner is when I try to operate a band that my antennas really aren't resonant at, like 160m.
Many hams recommend a handheld transceiver for a technician's first radio. These have a built-in stubby antenna. It is a quick way to acquire a limited 2-way comms capability along with your technician license. I suppose all hams ought to have one, but mine seldom finds use. I have found all VHF/UHF rigs immensely bothersome to program; you practically have to program it from your PC and store the programming file on the PC. This aspect of technician-class ham radio does not receive much coverage when we are trying to convince people how easy it is to get the tech license and get on the air. The weird combinations of buttons presses, long button press, short button press, press first then press second, etc. on all my Yaesu VHF/UHF rigs, are weird to learn and easy to forget if you're not using the rig all the time.
Over.