‘It's a really interesting job. I get to create something. I also really like what we make as well – the products are really good… It’s the perfect place to be because we design and build our own products.’

‘Showing empathy is probably the most important skill in my job. To be successful, you need to be sensitive and understanding and have a love for getting to know people. Understanding different cultural norms and values is key. Care workers come from different backgrounds, so they have to learn how to behave with clients in the UK.’

‘It sometimes feels like we are asked to shut off our brains as employees and not question any work issues – some may enjoy this, but I’d like more say in the decision-making.’

‘My role is a very varied and I find it quite fulfilling, because it's helping people at a time when they are under stress… You’re dealing with people at a very vulnerable stage of their life, so you’ve got to be aware of their needs. As an empathetic person, I can find it emotionally draining because if I see people crying, I want to join them.’

‘Being a Singer-Songwriter is a different job to how it looks from the outside. Most people only see the peaks of the mountain – live shows, being in magazines and so on. So people make certain assumptions about the job. And the industry definitely tries to build up those misconceptions.’

‘If I ever want a decent pay rise, I can’t be satisfied with sitting with customers for the rest of my career until I retire. I have to develop more skills and my values for the organisation.’

‘You need a thick skin for this job. I don’t clerk where I live. I don’t want to run into people in the supermarket and have them ask why certain council decisions were made. Sometimes members of the public can’t understand why you don’t just sort out their problems for them.’

‘I used to be proud of this job. I loved the fact that we could fight crime. My family was proud. It was a good job. It’s just changed so much. It’s easy to solve crime, there’s so much evidence these days, but the job’s got mired down in things that don’t matter.’

‘Work is where I get a lot of my fulfilment and it brings out many positive emotions. However, it’s also very demanding. I can ride on the high of a good day for a week, but a bad day can be devastating and demoralising.’

‘I think my job is fantastic. It's very rewarding because you can see the journey that the adoptive parents have been on to get to where they are today.’

‘To get on in this job, I think you need to be calm enough to not react to stress factors when they arise and be very rational. Work isn’t something I take home with me.’ 

‘[Being a chef] is a different type of tiring. The job has affected my physical and mental health at times... To be successful in this industry you need a very thick skin, the ability to work fast and hard and take in information at the same time. It’s not for wallflowers this industry.’

‘Driving heavy goods, it's not something you go into lightly. There a lot of folk… going in there and they’re spending thousands of pounds getting their licences, thinking that heavy goods is a good job, it’s a good earner. They’re in for a fright.’

‘When you’re doing this job as a black person or a disabled person, you’re impacted by the very things that you’re trying to work on.’

‘It’s like having 300 children. You can’t just abandon [the animals] for 48 hours. They’ve got to be looked after.’

‘We see into very difficult and complex lives and can have a major role in supporting them. We have that privileged insight.’

‘My job role is massively important to me. Not in terms of the title but in terms of feeling that I’m doing a good job.’

'When you’re dispatched to a job, it can be anything from a medical emergency to some sort of traumatic injury. On some jobs you certainly...feel you're making a difference and that you've done something for the patient'. 

"As pharmacists, we have eyes and ears everywhere, we’ve got to make sure of the safe running of the pharmacy…We have caught so many errors…and some of these are lifesaving. Mistakes happen, and we are there to catch it."

‘I’ve got a good job because I like working with teenagers. It’s very rewarding. But…it’s not an easy job. You can't switch off, sit down, relax, calm down a bit. You’ve got to love it or you couldn’t do it.’