WITH a new editor starting at the Echo this week, it seemed that the Chancellor Rishi Sunak was trying to tell me something by launching a careers aptitude test on the Government website.

It is to assist those who may need to “adapt”, to use the Richmond MP’s word, to a new career.

The test offers 20 or so questions about how you handle responsibility and your attitude to work and to people, and you have to select one of five answers, from “strongly agree” through to “strongly disagree”.

The middle, most non-committal, answer was “it depends”, which is what I chose for most of the questions. Do you like meeting new people? Well, it depends if they are streaming coronavirus all over the place. Do you like working with people around you? Well, it depends on whether they play Stormzy very loudly or have a craving to continually crunch on pungent rice cakes.

Do you make decisions quickly? Well, I thought about that one for some time before I decided that sometimes I did and sometimes I didn’t, so I decisively pressed “it depends” yet again.

When my questions were over, the algorithm offered me two sectors in which to consider a career: sport and leisure, and media and creative.

Fancying a real career change, I plumped for sport and leisure. I faced a couple of supplementary questions – do you always control your emotions in difficult situations, I said yes – and was advised that I should become a football referee.

I went back to the supplementary and said that I was not always able to control my emotions in difficult situations, and was then presented with four future career paths: a stunt performer, a hotel porter, an art gallery curator and an airline pilot.

Airline pilot was the most lucrative, as even one who finds it difficult to control their emotions when the oxygen masks come flopping out of the ceiling earns, apparently, up to £110,000.

And I was tempted with the idea of being an ill tempered art gallery curator. It might be quite fun to burst into tears whenever someone criticises the quality of paintings on display.

But the one that really caught my eye, of course, was a stunt performer. Mr Sunak’s website couldn’t tell me how much I would earn, but it did warn me that I might have to work up to 47 hours a week.

I suppose some of that might just be hanging around.

To follow my new career, I need to apply to the British Stunt Register and I’ll need to gain fighting, falling, riding and driving skills. Sub-aqua and strength skills are optional, but the Government website warns that “the fighting category is compulsory”.

At this point, what with my looks, I became uneasy at the prospect of becoming a stunt performer, so I looked back at the other category of jobs that I was advised to consider: media and creative.

Top of the list was for me to become an actor, but I’d have to work 47 hours a week including evenings, weekends and bank holidays. Too much like hard work.

The second on my list, though, looked intriguing: newspaper editor, “managing the style and content of printed publications”. You only work 37 hours a week and you can earn up to £80,000, apparently.

Where do I sign up?