Most British workers are content to remain in their current job even if it is not their dream job, a new survey shows.

The survey, from jobsite fish4jobs, shows that 86% of workers were content in their post and most workers (57%) would not retrain to attain their dream job.

Of those surveyed, the most popular dream job was a professional sports person (24%), while 22% wanted to be a famous actor or singer and 10% wanted to fight crime as a police officer.

A quarter of workers had studied further to improve their chances of landing their dream job, with 4% still in training and 3% have discarded their dream despite training for it.

Joe Slavin, chief executive at fish4jobs, said: “It’s really interesting to see the transition from our childhood dreams to adult reality.

“Many kids grow up wanting to be in glamorous careers but the reality is that it is very difficult to get that dream job when there is so much competition out there. People end up quitting college and their dreams to pursue something different and often more stable.

“This doesn’t mean that we are encouraging people to not have a dream but if you want to make it on TV or in the music industry, or want to be an astronaut, you really need to be at the top of your league.

“Our advice is to work really hard at school, go to college to get the right qualifications, and make sure that you take as many opportunities that come your way regarding work experience.”