Ruth, 57, from Kent, never struggled to get a job – until now. She worked in the tourism industry for most of her career, regularly getting promotions. When Covid hit, and the company she worked for shut down, she quickly found another role as an office manager in two different businesses. But 18 months ago she was made redundant. Her husband was still in his IT job, and her adult children had their own jobs. But Ruth still had her share of the mortgage and bills to pay, and without her salary, things would soon get very tight.
“It wasn’t just the money,” she says, “it was that I’ve always taken pride in working. I’ve amassed all this experience, and I wanted to use it. Being in my mid-fifties was much too young to retire – I am young in today’s world! I had probably at least 15 years of work left.”
Ruth gave herself a couple of weeks to get over the shock of redundancy, went on a nice holiday with her husband to Corfu, and then started sending off job applications.
Ruth received in response only radio silence, or outright rejection. This went on for 14 more months. “It became soul-destroying,” she says. “I wanted an ordinary job, nothing especially highly-paid or at executive level, and I was applying for all sorts of roles I’d done before, and had experience in. Hearing nothing back, day in, day out, was emotionally pretty tough.”
In September, her luck changed. Ruth got offered a job at a small family business, where she felt her experience and confidence with people was valued. “Applying for all those jobs every week was a dire experience,” she says, “and I’d started to feel I was too old to hire, or that AI was weeding me out before I got a chance to prove myself. It’s tough for loads of people out there, of all ages, I know, but I definitely felt people were thinking I wasn’t worth investing in, or might not be as quick or up to scratch with tech. Which is all complete rubbish.”
Andy Burnham has made tackling the UK’s youth Neet (“not in education, employment, or training”) crisis a central focus of his prime ministership. The over-fifties who are further on in their careers don’t seem to be faring well in the job market, either. According to ONS data, 2.9 million people aged between 50 and 66 are Neters (not employed, in training or retirement),which is just over 21 per cent of this age group. And it’s not for lack of desire. By the end of 2025, nearly 925,000 people over 50 were interested in or actively seeking work – the highest level since 2020.
Henry Allingham from The Centre for Ageing Better researches ageism faced by over fifties in the workplace. “There’s a crisis not dissimilar to the Neets crisis,” he says, “but it’s not getting the same attention, and there isn’t the same political will to tackle it. Yet those in their fifties and sixties face some profound challenges when it comes to the labour market.”
Tara, 52, in County Durham, left her job as a nursery worker after 14 years. Before that she had been a stay-at-home mother. “I left because I had knee issues due to osteoarthritis, which made looking after small children all day very hard,” she says. “So I first tried to retrain by doing an admin course, and applied for apprenticeships. I was also at the job centre, trying to get Employment and Support allowance, but I was denied because I was too mobile, even though I’d been forced to quit my job because of joint pain.
“I tried [applying for] office work for several months,” says Tara, “but got nothing. For almost a year I looked for nursery jobs, and I applied for a ton, only to be told, ‘We really liked you, but the other person we interviewed had more of what we were looking for’.”
In the end, what changed her fortune was working with an agency called Durham Enable, a government and council-supported employment service for people with disabilities, neurodiversities and long-term health conditions. With their help she got a nursery job for three days a week. “What was extra tough at my age,” says Tara, “is that there were so many articles and posters telling me to ‘just retrain’, but in reality, if you’ve been in the same job for years and have no other experience, it’s difficult to start again and get hired.”
More than half of Neters (55 per cent, 1.6 million people) have a long-term illness or are disabled. Another profound barrier to work for many in that age group is caring responsibilities: half a million of them care for spouses, parents, and other relatives. The fact that more women are unpaid carers to loved ones is one of many reasons that there are currently over 500,000 more female Neters than male. “There are those who find it difficult to manage those care responsibilities,” says Allingham, “and they’re almost pushed out of employment because of it.”
Then, there’s ageism. “It absolutely does exist for people in their fifties and sixties in the workplace,” says Allingham. The average age someone becomes undesirable to recruiters is 55, Allingham’s poll of 4,000 UK adults found. More than a third (36 per cent) of people surveyed felt applicants were viewed as less desirable at 50 or younger, while eight per cent think the cut-off point is as early as 40. Only 10 per cent said they did not believe there was any age at which someone became less desirable to hire.
Stacey Flinn, from Darlington, is not in the over-fifties age bracket yet, at just 42, but she experienced the difficult job market after she left her role as an NHS medical secretary in the mental health services. She quit after 11 years to move to Bahrain and make money in her other job as a personal trainer, with the aim of making enough money to pay off her mortgage back home, and give her school-age son a better financial future.
But after the war with Iran began, she decided to return home. “People who knew me asked why I couldn’t go back to my old job,” she says, “but things don’t work like that anymore; I’d have had to apply again. I thought I’d get something quite easily, as I also had experience as a high street bank manager, I’ve got shop experience, and I’ve done pubs, customer service roles, admin, and a bit of everything. I’ve got years of work under my belt, basic skills but also transferable ones. I applied for everything, and anything, but even for a job at the Co-Op, I couldn’t get to interview.”
Flinn was waking up and feeling she had nothing to go to. “It was like lockdown, and it was a bit depressing.” She began living off her credit card in order to pay her mortgage, but finally got a job as a librarian in a school. She is also a personal trainer. “I feel really lucky, and now it’s made me think about how much harder things could have been.”
Lynne is a 50-year-old retail worker in Leeds. She has a job, but has been trying to get a new one for four years. “I’m desperate to leave,” she says. “I need a job with better nine-to-five hours, and no late nights or weekends.” She’s trying to move into admin but has not managed to get any interviews. “I care for my parents and I live with them, too,” she says, “so it’s tough for me to work those long hours I currently do. It really feels like I don’t get a look in because of my age. I have friends who have taken some of their experience off their CVs to not be so obvious about how old they are.”
Lynne also believes that the recent focus on menopause awareness hasn’t done her, or her fellow 50-somethings, any favours. “I know it’s meant to be good to talk about these things,” she says, “but I honestly believe it puts recruiters off women my age as we’re all basically seen as ‘mental’, hard work, and unpredictable.”
A cohort of workers in their sixties told The Centre for Ageing Better that they’d faced explicit questioning of their ability to cope in a digital environment. A woman who had been working in digital environments building websites since the 90s was asked whether she’d be able to cope in a digital-focused role. “These assumptions do exist,” says Allingham, “and they are substantial barriers, and very, very often completely unfounded.”
Katya, 56, from North London, worked in a highly paid corporate role for 27 years. When she was made redundant in 2024, she was surprised that it took her almost a year to get a new role that would pay enough to cover her mortgage. “I was just at the perfect age to give my all to work,” she says. “My kids [25 and 27] are grown-up, I’m healthy and working out, which I never had time for before, I’m keen to try new tech, and develop at work. I just wanted an interesting role, some health insurance, a good pension, and the ability to work from home every so often.”
She’s now found that, albeit for less pay than she wanted. “Now I’m there, I can see myself sticking around for another decade. It’s such a waste when there are so many people in the UK wanting to work, and they’re just being excluded, like they’re washed up old bags when, really, I feel in many ways I’m better at my job in my fifties than I’ve ever been.”
So, what can be done? “Employers can aim to be more flexible,” says Allingham, “to make sure there’s an environment that can be accommodating for people with their own health needs, and also care responsibilities. Employers can use more inclusive language in job ads so older workers feel comfortable to apply.”
But what is really needed, experts say, is the political appetite for change.
“We want a strategy for longer working lives,” says Allingham, “so that the government can really get to grips with the issue, but as it stands, the focus in exclusively on young people. They’re having a tough time, but so are older people. What we want to see is more balance in recognising that for the 50-plus group, there are huge problems in getting work.”
Allingham also says that the idea that older people are taking jobs from young people is “absolute nonsense” and “not based in any evidence”. However, he says, there is proof that intergenerational workspaces benefit businesses, and employees. “Hiring at both ends of the age spectrum is the most positive thing an employer can do.”