If you are charged you will be required to attend court for 2 - 10 days typically, not all consecutively and so you should be prepared to take that time off work.
Some jobs, including those in the medical, legal and teaching professions, or if you work in care premises, require an enhanced DBS check (previously known as CRB). Any work that involves contact with children also requires the enhanced DBS check, including being the cleaner or bus driver for a school, for example. Also other less obvious jobs such as being a chiropractor - please read here to see if yours is one of the jobs that requires an enhanced check.
If it isn’t on the list above, then after a certain amount of time (known as a ‘rehabilitation period’) you do not need to tell most potential employers about most crimes you’ve committed in the past. Before your conviction is spent, you only have to tell the employer about your past crime if they ask you - most employers will ask you at the point of making a job application. This doesn’t necessarily count against you, as they are able to see the nature of your conviction, and you can have the chance to explain your motivations.
From the Unlock website: ' If an employer wants to know about criminal records, they will normally ask you to disclose in a certain way; this might be at interview or after they’ve made a conditional offer. Some employers ask on their application forms. Where possible, we suggest that you disclose your record face-to-face; this tends to be most effective.’
http://hub.unlock.org.uk/quick-links/top10/#for-more-information
The rehabilitation period depends on the sentence. For a community order it is 6 months. For a fine it is year. After that, you generally don’t need to tell anyone about it if you don’t want to - unless your job means you require an enhanced DBS. After a conviction is spent it can still show up on applications to stay in the UK and when travelling abroad to some countries.