The Job of a Vicar

Being a vicar is more than just a Sunday job.

Each day typically starts and finishes with personal prayers.

Meetings, meetings and more meetings

Sundays are taken up with services at 8am, 10 or 11am, and 6.30pm - and some vicars tend to more than one parish.

Between services, the vicar may visit housebound parishioners.

As well as spreading the word of God and tending to parishioners' spiritual needs, vicars also carry out a number of secular tasks.

They are expected to keep parish accounts, chair meetings and run fundraising campaigns.

They may also sit on the board of governors of a church-run school, or head a community project for the homeless or the elderly.

As the Church of England is keen to turn around falling attendance figures, the vicar often leads a team of lay volunteers charged with taking the word to the streets - modern-day missionary work.

Vicars are entitled to up to six Sundays off a year, a week of rest following the Easter and Christmas rushes, and four weeks paid holiday a year.

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