The Met Office is warning the UK’s emergency services of the risks of a hotter than normal summer.

In fact, we could be in for the hottest months in 12 years, with temperatures soaring to 33℃ right through to August.

This means the demands on frontline healthcare could be greater than ever.

Thankfully, the job that’s most sought-after in online job searches is ambulance driver.

Despite in most cases having a relatively modest starting salary, it seems would-be applicants are drawn to a role that combines caring for people with working in a fast-paced, high-adrenaline environment.

The emergency services have an enduring allure when it comes to career choices and the appeal starts at a young age. Nursery classes and schools across the UK are full of kids who want to be firefighters or doctors.

Despite this, there is a national shortage of paramedics.

In 2015 the Migration Advisory Committee acted on advice that the paramedic vacancy rate in England was 10% and added paramedics to the relevant shortage occupation list.

According to statista.com there were 19,000 paramedics in the UK in 2010. This figure rose to 32,000 in 2013 but plummeted to 23,000 in 2017.

As a paramedic, you could be performing CPR and bringing a patient back to life one day then delivering a baby the next.

In fact, many of the jobs in polls of the top 100 most sought-after roles are within the medical and healthcare sector.

This fascination is reflected in popular culture – TV schedules are filled with real-life medical programmes such as Ambulance and the award-winning 24 Hours in A&E, as well as dramas such as Holby City, Grey’s Anatomy and the BBC’s long-running Casualty.

If you feel a vocation to work in medicine, the spectrum of job roles is broad and varied. No matter what your skill set, you can find your own highly sought-after role.

EMTs and Paramedics

If you work in the emergency ambulance team, it’s highly unlikely you will just drive the ambulance – though that part is fun. Usually you will also be a trained paramedic or Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) and be involved in directly assessing and providing frontline patient treatment. It’s fast-paced but can be very rewarding.

Ambulance Care Assistant

If you like the idea of caring for people, have good driving skills but feel put off by the high drama of emergency call-outs, you could work as an ambulance care assistant.

This involves transporting patients to hospital for routine appointments and helping them in and out of the ambulance.

Admin Assistant

Not surprisingly for such a huge organisation, the NHS requires an army of administrators and many of these roles can be found within the top 100 most sought-after jobs.

They include medical records clerks, for those with an organisational streak, as well as dental or medical receptionists – the first point of contact for patients and require a combination of people and organisational skills.

Hospital Porters

These, too, are much searched vacancies, especially for people just starting out in their career. Like many well-regarded roles within healthcare, patients are appreciative of the work porters do and their help and friendly manner can go a long way to making patients feel at ease.

A career in healthcare, particularly on the frontline of emergency services, can be physically and emotionally hard work.

However the satisfaction is unrivalled. All of the most sought-after roles offer the potential to transform the experience of people who are at one of the most challenging times in their lives.

Explore the opportunities available within this important sector now.