She’s hosted The One Show for 16 years, but Alex Jones has revealed that she still feels “guilt” over the subsequent lack of “balance” the show has given her life.

Jones, 49, has hosted ever since, but made a surprising admission about her role in a new interview ahead of the show’s 20th anniversary.

“Presenting The One Show is my dream job. I still can’t believe how lucky I am,” she told The Daily Mirror.

“But something always has to give. I always have mum guilt.”

With husband of 10 years, New Zealander Charlie Thomson, Jones is parent to three children: Teddy, nine, Kit, seven, and Annie, four.

Speaking about her struggle juggling parenting duties with work, the 49-year-old explained that presenting the flagship BBC programme meant that she was not home in the evenings for her kids.

“I don’t do bedtime, but I do take my children to school in the morning,” she said, adding that her three children were often still awake when she returned anyway.

“They never sleep through the night,” Jones revealed, adding: “If I’m honest, they come looking for me. I said to Annie, ‘Darling, you need to start sleeping in your own bed,’ even though I love it when she hops in next to me.

“She said, ‘Mama, I haven’t seen you and you haven’t picked me up from school. I won’t see you until tomorrow.’ It’s clever, she got me! If that’s where we are at this stage, who cares? The years go by so fast and I don’t want to rush their childhood. So what if we’re all in the same bed?”

Jones said that she still felt like she was “paddling away furiously under the surface”, adding: “But then, everyone is. Everyone has worries and commitments and something that makes their life less straightforward. I don’t think we’ve cracked it and sometimes I feel like the balance is all wrong. But I do try my best.”

Raised in South Wales, Jones first appeared on TV as a contestant on the Sky reality TV show Prickly Heat before working as a researcher. She began presenting aged 21, having previously felt that such a job was out of reach for her as a girl from Carmarthenshire.

“When I was a little girl growing up in South Wales, I thought I’d like to be a presenter but I was too scared to say anything because nobody in South Wales became broadcasters, especially not on national television,” she revealed in a recent interview.