Age discrimination at work
It is the one protected characteristic employers routinely treat as less serious, and the only one where even direct discrimination can in principle be justified. Neither of those makes it cheap: the compensation is uncapped, exactly as it is for race or disability.
It runs in both directions
Age discrimination protects everybody, at every age. Being passed over as too old is unlawful; so is being dismissed as too young, too inexperienced-looking for a client-facing role, or not taken seriously in a senior position because of apparent youth.
In practice most claims come from people over 50, and most arise at three moments: a restructure, a performance process that begins after years without one, and a recruitment decision.
What it looks like in real cases
Age discrimination is rarely stated outright. It appears in language that everyone in the room understands:
- “We need fresh thinking” · “a more dynamic team” · “digital natives”
- “Energy” as a criterion in a redundancy matrix
- “Where do you see yourself in ten years?” asked of a candidate in their late fifties
- “Are you sure you want the commute at this stage?”
- “Overqualified” — which sometimes means overqualified and sometimes means older
- Asking about retirement plans in an appraisal
- Restructures where every departure happens to be at the upper end of the age range
None of those is conclusive on its own. Several together, or one alongside a decision that went the wrong way, is how these cases are built — because once there are facts from which a tribunal could conclude discrimination, the employer has to prove the reason was not age.
The justification defence, and its limits
Age is the only characteristic where direct discrimination can be objectively justified. Employers over-read this considerably.
The employer must show the treatment was a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, and in age cases the legitimate aim must be a public interest one — intergenerational fairness, workforce planning, health and safety — rather than simply the employer’s own cost saving. Cost alone cannot justify discrimination, though it can be considered alongside other factors.
In practice most employers assert justification without evidence of having weighed anything, and an assertion is not a justification.
Where older employees lose out without a dismissal
What a claim is worth
No cap. Financial loss plus injury to feelings under the Vento bands — £1,300 to £12,600 (lower), £12,600 to £37,700 (middle), £37,700 to £62,900 (upper), and more in exceptional cases.
Age claims can be worth a great deal for a reason that is easy to miss: the financial loss element is often larger. An employee dismissed at 58 may never obtain equivalent work, and the tribunal assesses loss for as long as it accepts the effect continues — which can mean loss to retirement, plus the pension consequences, rather than the six or twelve months a younger claimant might recover.
Time limits
Three months less one day currently, rising to six months from 1 October 2026 for acts on or after that date, with Acas conciliation first.
Questions
Questions people ask us
Nobody mentioned my age. Do I have a claim?
Possibly. Explicit references are rare. What matters is whether the facts — coded language, the pattern of who was selected, inconsistent explanations, comparators — allow a tribunal to draw the inference. Once they do, the employer must prove the reason was not age.
Can my employer make me retire?
There is no default retirement age. A compulsory retirement is a dismissal and must be objectively justified with actual evidence. Most cannot be.
They said I was overqualified. Is that age discrimination?
It can be, where it is used as shorthand for older. The context and what else was said or done usually decide it.
Is age discrimination taken as seriously as other kinds?
By tribunals, yes — the compensation is uncapped and the legal test is the same. By employers, frequently not, which is precisely why these claims arise and why the evidence is often unusually careless.
I was scored down for "adaptability" in a redundancy exercise. Is that lawful?
It depends on how the criterion was defined and applied. Subjective criteria that correlate with age are vulnerable, particularly where the scoring cannot be evidenced. Ask for your scores and the moderation notes.
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