Weight loss: 20 best UK jobs to burn calories if your desk job is making you gain weight

When you spend most of your day sat at your desk, it can be hard to burn enough calories to make up for that Pret lunch, let alone lead a healthy lifestyle. However, if you’re looking to move careers and lose weight, you might want to get a masseuse licence, or get swinging that axe.

We spend half our lives in the workplace and, on average, are at work for 253 days of the year. So it will come as little surprise to people who spend all of that time at their desk that seated workers are more likely to be obese.

In a survey of sedentary professions, researchers found that over two-thirds of desk-based workers were either obese or morbidly obese, burning just 600 calories throughout the working day. As always, the key to keeping a healthy weight is a proper diet and exercise – but it would certainly be easier if you could do most of that calorie-burning exercise while you’re being paid.

Having a more active job can also help create a healthy mindset around exercise, as desk workers are also 74 per cent less likely to seek out exercise outside of work. So, if you’re looking to find a new career and a new summer job without paying for a gym, the fitness experts at sweatband.com have calculated which professions are the best to stay trim.

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20 most calorie-burning professions in the UK

Keeping fit and active is the simplest way to stay healthy, so if you want your job to help rather than hinder your health, you might want to become a firefighter, or even maybe a massage therapist.

Even if you do not want to quit your day job, the regular physical activity that these jobs entail could be helpful if you are trying to find out ways to get more active.

Tony Goldingay, spokesperson for sweatband.com, advises: “Drastic changes to mentality do not mean drastic changes to activity. You don’t need to be considering a brand-new career path to combat the lower calorie-burning potential of your current role.

“Small adaptions such as standing, stretching and pacing once every hour and committing to a plan of activity outside of work hours is all it takes to begin turning your life around.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, you should aim to burn between 500 and 1000 calories more than you take in each day, if you are aiming to lose an achievable one pound of weight per week. Some of these professions burn so many calories, you might be able to allow yourself that extra slice of cake.

1. Firefighters – 5,080 calories per day (1,300,480 per year)
2. Forestry – 4,900 calories per day (1,239,700 per year)
3. Housekeepers – 4,480 calories per day (1,146,800 per year)
4. Fitness instructors – 4,128 calories per day (1,056,768 per year)
5. Roofer – 4,000 calories per day (1,000,000 per year)
6. Farming – 3,808 calories per day (963,424 per year)
7. Refuse workers – 2,840 calories per day (727,040 per year)
8. Construction – 2,754 calories per day (696,762 per year)
9. Retail assistant – 2,544 calories per day (636,000 per year)
10. Flight attendant – 2,380 calories per day (595,000 per year)
11. Fishing – 2,240 calories per day (566,720 per year)
12. Plumber – 2,000 calories per day (506,000 per year)
13. Police – 1,632 calories per day (412,896 per year)
14. Custodial – 1,600 calories per day (404,800 per year)
15. Waiting staff – 1,400 calories per day (350,000 per year)
16. Massage therapists – 1,340 calories per day (335,000 per year)
17. Dog walkers – 1,272 calories per day (325,632 per year)
18. Delivery driver – 880 calories per day (222,640 per year)
19. Hair stylist – 840 calories per day (212,520 per year)
20. Office worker – 600 calories per day (151,800 per year)

If you want to build the regular exercise that is involved in these jobs into your own work day, sweatband.com advise: “The average 30-minute stroll burns between 100-200 calories, this is an easy adaption for a large portion of people without any physical exercise during their work weeks.

“Think multiple small changes, not one big change, this will help almost anyone begin the reap the long-term health benefits associated with keeping the scales in check!”