A survey published last Wednesday reveals that more than nine out of 10 people in Britain believe admitting a mental illness would harm their careers.

The survey, commissioned for the anti-stigma campaign Time to Change, also found that as levels of mental illness are expected to rise during the recession, people may find it more difficult to get jobs if they mention their mental illness in a job interview.

A shocking 92 per cent of the British public said they believed "admitting to having a mental illness would damage someone's career". The three careers considered to be most at risk were doctors (56 per cent), emergency services (54 per cent) and teachers (48 per cent).

However, only 21 per cent of respondents thought that it would be damaging to the career of an MP, despite the fact that an MP can be removed from their seat if they are detained under the powers of Section 141 of the 1983 Mental Health Act, for six months or more.

The study asked more than 2,000 people around the UK to imagine they were interviewing someone for a job who admitted that from time to time they suffered from depression. Despite the respondents considering this person the best candidate for the job, more than half (56 per cent) would not employ them because of their mental illness.

In addition, the survey found that nearly one in five (17 per cent) of those who would not offer the 'best candidate' the job thought mental illness would make that person unreliable, while 10 per cent were worried that if they employed such a person who subsequently took time off sick, they would be blamed for employing them.

A further 15 per cent worried that they wouldn't work as well as other employees or that other staff would react negatively towards them, undermining team morale.

Responses from the survey were also broken down by professions, for example health workers, lawyers and banking. It found that bank workers were the most likely to discriminate against someone with a mental illness. Almost half of respondents (46 per cent) working in this sector were either reluctant to employ someone with a mental illness because they would be unreliable or worried about blame for employing them if they went off sick.

This is worrying for members of the banking industry, a sector hit badly by the recession, when they attempt to get new jobs.

Andy Harley, 37, worked for six years as a business analyst for a bank, until he developed depression and gave up work for a year to recover. He had 150 interviews before he could get another job.

He said: "My experience of getting a job in the banking sector following my depression backs up the findings of this survey.

"I admitted to depression on application forms and didn't get interviews despite my experience. My mental illness set off alarm bells.

"My depression was a major concern in the interviews that I did get, with the interviewers worrying that I wouldn't be reliable or able to cope with stress."

He continued: "The discrimination in the banking sector is outdated. They saw my illness, not me. I'm not foremost a person with a mental illness.

"They didn't take into account my own personal circumstances, or the fact that I had worked well for six years in a high-pressured environment. Anyone can get ill at any time. I was eventually forced to seek work in another sector."

Sue Baker, director of Time to Change, said: "The issue of mental health in the workplace is never more important than in time of recession. We need to be able to have a discussion about mental health problems in the workplace, and to put an end to discriminatory attitudes that prevent capable people from working."

The Time to Change campaign is a programme aiming to end mental health discrimination in England. The campaign is run by leading mental health charities Mind and Rethink, and backed by £16 million from the Big Lottery Fund and £4 million from Comic Relief.

For more information, go to www.time-to-change.org.uk.