Ambulance staff, teachers and social service workers are among Britain’s most stressed professionals, according to a study on Friday.

Also feeling the pressure are call center operators, prison officers, administrative staff and police.

“What most of these professions have in common is a lot of face to face contact with a high degree of emotional labor,” said Clare Millet, an occupational psychologist involved in the study.

Researchers questioned more than 10,000 people from 24 professions on their psychological wellbeing at work.

The least stressed were school lunchtime supervisors.

But some jobs with high emotional content ranked lower than expected. Nursing failed to make it into the top seven.

The researchers suggested that a combination of emotion with other factors such as work overload and poor work/life balance may be at play.

The study was carried out by Millet and Sheena Johnson of the University of Liverpool with colleagues from the universities of Manchester and Lancaster.