You’ve done the job for 25 years. You’ve trained half the people now interviewing for it. Then the rejection email comes, all corporate warmth: they’ve gone with a candidate who is a better cultural fit. Later, a friend on the inside tells you what the hiring manager actually said, which was that they wanted someone with more energy. Someone a bit fresher. Someone, in other words, who was in primary school when you were sitting your first appraisal.
Most men in their fifties shrug this off. Age bias is hard to prove, tribunals sound like hassle, and nobody wants to be the bloke who sued over a job he didn’t get. But the law is more on your side than you might think, and the process is cheaper and less dramatic than its reputation.
Is it illegal to reject a job applicant because of their age?
Yes, in most cases. Under the Equality Act 2010, which covers England, Scotland and Wales, age is one of nine protected characteristics. The protection doesn’t start on your first day in the job. It covers the whole recruitment process: the advert, the shortlisting, who gets interviewed, what they’re asked and who gets the offer. You don’t need any length of service to bring a claim, and you don’t even need to have been interviewed. Being screened out on paper counts.
The Act covers two main kinds of discrimination. Direct discrimination means being treated less favourably because of your age, as in we want someone younger. Indirect discrimination is subtler. It’s a rule that looks neutral but puts older people at a disadvantage, such as insisting on a degree gained in the past five years, or capping applicants at a maximum number of years’ experience. Age has one twist that the other protected characteristics mostly lack: an employer can sometimes justify even direct age discrimination if it is a proportionate way of achieving a legitimate aim. Wanting a team that looks good on Instagram won’t qualify. Real health and safety requirements might.
Northern Ireland is different. The Equality Act doesn’t apply there, and age discrimination at work is covered by the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006. The protections are broadly similar, but the bodies are different: the Labour Relations Agency handles early conciliation and claims go to an industrial tribunal.
What does age discrimination in recruitment look like?
It is rarely as blunt as a manager saying you’re too old out loud, though that does happen, and when it does it’s a gift. Usually it’s in the wording. Adverts asking for digital natives, recent graduates, a young and dynamic team or high energy levels all carry an age signal, and employers’ lawyers spend a lot of time telling clients to stop using them. Application forms that ask for your date of birth without a good reason, or interview questions about how long you plan to keep working, when you’re thinking of retiring, or whether you’d be comfortable being managed by someone younger, are all warning signs.
Then there’s overqualified, the word that has done more quiet damage to the over-50s job market than any recession. It isn’t automatically unlawful. An employer can genuinely worry you’ll be bored and leave. But if it’s a polite way of saying you’re too expensive and too old, a tribunal is allowed to look behind it.
The law doesn’t require you to prove what was in the interviewer’s head. It requires you to show enough that the employer has to explain themselves.
That’s the important bit. In discrimination claims, once you’ve shown facts from which a tribunal could conclude discrimination happened, the burden shifts to the employer to show it didn’t. A younger, less experienced candidate getting the job, plus a careless comment or a loaded advert, can be enough to put them on the spot.
How do I start a claim with Acas?
Before you can take an employment tribunal claim in Great Britain, you must notify Acas through its early conciliation service. It’s free, it’s done online or by phone, and it’s compulsory: no early conciliation certificate, no tribunal claim. A conciliator contacts both sides and tries to broker a settlement. They are impartial, so they won’t argue your case, but they will tell you how the process works and pass offers back and forth. Conciliation can run for up to six weeks.
The deadline is the thing that catches people out. You normally have three months less one day from the act of discrimination, such as the date of the rejection, to start early conciliation. The clock pauses while conciliation is under way, and you then get at least a month after the certificate is issued to lodge your tribunal claim. The government has legislated to extend the time limit to six months, but until that change takes effect, work to three. Tribunals can accept late discrimination claims if it’s just and equitable to do so, but relying on their goodwill is a poor strategy.
Use the time well. Write down what was said and when, while it’s fresh. Keep the advert, the job description and every email. And consider a subject access request under UK data protection law: you’re entitled to the personal data the employer holds about you, which can include interview notes and scoring sheets. They normally have a month to respond. You’d be surprised what people write in the margin.
How much compensation can you get for age discrimination?
Unlike unfair dismissal, discrimination compensation has no cap. In practice, for a job applicant, it comes in two main parts. The first is financial loss, such as the salary you’d have earned. This is harder to establish for an applicant than for an employee, because the tribunal has to estimate your chance of having got the job, and it may reduce the award to reflect that.
The second is injury to feelings, which is assessed using the Vento bands, updated each year. For claims presented on or after 6 April 2025, the lower band runs from £1,200 to £12,100 for less serious one-off incidents. The middle band runs from £12,100 to £36,400, and the upper band from £36,400 to £60,700, with the most exceptional cases going higher. A single rejected application with an ageist remark will usually sit in the lower band, perhaps towards the middle if the effect on you was severe. Tribunals can also add interest, and make recommendations about the employer’s practices, though they can’t order them to give you the job.
There is currently no fee to bring an employment tribunal claim. The cost is mainly your time, your nerves and possibly a solicitor. Many cases never reach a hearing at all and are settled through Acas, often with a confidentiality clause, which is partly why you rarely hear about them.
Is it worth it?
Be honest with yourself. Tribunals have long waiting lists, the employer may have deeper pockets and you’ll have to relive the whole thing under cross-examination. Check whether your home insurance includes legal expenses cover, because many policies do, and whether your union, if you’re in one, will back you. Citizens Advice and Acas’s helpline are good first stops for free guidance.
But even if you never get as far as a hearing, knowing the rules changes how you deal with employers. A calm email asking why you weren’t shortlisted, mentioning the Equality Act, tends to concentrate minds in HR. And every employer that pays out, even quietly, is a bit more careful with the next 57-year-old who applies.
In short
Yes, rejecting a job applicant because of their age is generally unlawful under the Equality Act 2010 in England, Scotland and Wales, and under separate age regulations in Northern Ireland. You must contact Acas (or the Labour Relations Agency in Northern Ireland) for early conciliation, normally within three months less one day of the rejection, before you can go to a tribunal. Awards for injury to feelings currently start at £1,200 and have no upper limit, so keep the evidence and watch the deadline.
Sources
Midcent Society
Andy Irwin writes about the way we live now for men 45 and over: work, relationships, mental health, getting older, and the trends and debates that land on men in the middle of life. With the facts, a dry sense of humour, and no lectures.
One of Midcent's writers. Spotted something? Write to andy@midcent.uk.
