Is Ageism Holding You Back or Are You Holding Yourself Back?
- 1 day ago
- 9 min read
Vicky Russ is a leadership coach and former CEO with 20+ years’ experience across the public, health and education sectors. She specialises in leadership, transformation and helping leaders navigate complex change and life transitions.
Ageism in the UK workplace is real, widespread, and well documented. But what if the most damaging form of age discrimination is not coming from employers, recruiters, or colleagues, but from inside your own head? This article examines the evidence on age in the UK workforce, introduces the psychology of internalised ageism, and offers practical strategies for challenging the self limiting beliefs that may be doing more damage than any recruiter or employer ever could.
The numbers tell a different story
Let us start with some facts. One in three workers in the UK is now aged 50 or over. That is more than 10 million people. The state pension age began its rise from 66 to 67 in April 2026, with a further increase to 68 planned for 2044. The average actual retirement age has climbed to 65.1 for men and 64.0 for women, up from 63 and 61 respectively at the turn of the century. Demographic projections suggest the proportion of older workers will continue to rise. Some forecasts put it close to half the workforce by 2030. People are working longer, and the workforce is ageing. The numbers point in one direction.
Yet, that is not what we are seeing. The employment rate for people aged 50 to 64 sits at 71.6 percent, significantly behind the government's 80 percent target and well below countries like Iceland, at 81 percent, and the Netherlands, at 75 percent. Workers made redundant over 50 are three times less likely to return to work within three months than younger workers and 26.1 percent of adults aged 50 to 64 are economically inactive, with 1.7 million citing long-term sickness as the reason. The demographics say this age group should be thriving in the labour market. The reality says otherwise.
So what is going on? The answer, I believe, is ageism. Theirs, and ours. That is what this article is about.
Self-employment tells an interesting story too. Of the 4.3 million self-employed workers in the UK, more than 2 million, 49 percent, are aged 50 and over. Among workers aged 66 and above, more than a third are self-employed. Older workers are not disappearing from the economy. Many are simply building their own version of it.
Yes, ageism is real
None of this is to deny that age discrimination exists. It does, and the evidence is stark. A February 2025 report by the Women and Equalities Committee concluded that ageism is "widespread and culturally embedded in the UK." Nearly one in five adults report having faced ageism in their careers. Workers over 51 are 1.7 times more likely to experience prejudice than younger colleagues. One in three people aged over 50 believe they have been turned down for a job because of their age and 56 percent of recruiters admit to making age-based assumptions during the hiring process.
These are not small numbers. Ageism in recruitment and the workplace is a genuine structural problem that needs to be addressed by employers, policymakers, and professional bodies. I am not here to minimise it.
But I want to ask a more uncomfortable question, "What if the biggest barrier is you?"
In my coaching practice, I work with professionals navigating redundancy, career transitions, retirement, and the search for renewed purpose. Many of them are in their fifties and sixties. I keep hearing the same thing. "I'm too old now." "Nobody's going to hire someone my age." "I've left it too late." One person referred to themselves as "too old" at 41!
These are intelligent, experienced, highly capable people. People who have led teams, run departments, and built careers over decades. They have already decided, before they have even tried, that their age disqualifies them. Not because an employer told them so. Because they told themselves.
I had a conversation recently with a client who had been made redundant at 57. She had 30 years of senior experience in the public sector, an exceptional track record, and a skill set that any organisation would be fortunate to have. But she was not applying for roles. When I asked why, she said, "What's the point? They'll see my age and put me straight in the no pile." She had not been rejected. She had rejected herself.
She is not unusual. I hear variations of this conversation every week. People who have absorbed the cultural narrative, and it is loud at the moment, about older workers, that they are slower, less adaptable, less tech-savvy, less valuable, and too expensive, and turned it inward. They have stopped fighting the system and started agreeing with it and believing it. They've internalised it.
The psychology of internalised ageism
There is a name for this. Psychologist Becca Levy at Yale University developed what she calls Stereotype Embodiment Theory, the idea that age stereotypes, absorbed across a lifetime, eventually become internalised as self definitions that directly influence health, performance, and wellbeing.
The theory has four components. First, age stereotypes are internalised across the lifespan. We absorb them long before they apply to us. Second, they operate unconsciously. We do not always recognise when they are shaping our behaviour. Third, they gain power when they become personally relevant, when we reach the age we once stereotyped. Fourth, they work through multiple pathways, affecting our psychology, our physiology, and our behaviour simultaneously.
The research findings are extraordinary. Levy's longitudinal studies found that people with more positive self-perceptions of ageing lived an average of 7.5 years longer than those with negative self perceptions. That is not a marginal effect. It is a larger impact than that associated with low blood pressure, low cholesterol, or maintaining a healthy weight. What you believe about your age shapes how long you live.
Here is the finding that should stop every career changer in their tracks. Among the three forms of ageism, institutional, interpersonal, and self-directed, it is self-directed ageism that has the strongest association with negative health outcomes. Not the employer who does not call you back. Not the recruiter who makes assumptions. The voice inside your own head.
Eighty-three and starting again
Whenever I catch myself thinking I am too old for something, and I do, because none of us is immune to this, I think of my great aunt.
At the age of 83, following the death of her husband, she decided to emigrate to India. Not for a holiday. She moved there. She built a life, made friends, learned to navigate a completely different culture, and lived there happily for 20 years. She did not ask permission. She just decided that her life was not finished, and she acted on it.
I tell her story to people, and to myself, not because everyone should move to India at 83, but because it demolishes the "too old to…" narrative. The narrative that says there is an age at which you stop being capable of bold, meaningful, purposeful change. There is not. There is only the age at which you decide to believe there is. So the real question is not whether you are too old. The question is whether you have started believing that you are.
Beliefs are not facts, and they can be changed
This is the part that matters most. If internalised ageism is a belief system, a set of assumptions absorbed over decades and now running on autopilot, then it can be examined, challenged, and changed. Beliefs are not fixed. They are habits of thought and habits can be broken.
Levy's own research supports this. Studies have shown that when older adults are subliminally primed with positive age stereotypes, their cognitive and physical performance improves. When primed with negative stereotypes, it declines. The beliefs come first. The performance follows.
So if you have been telling yourself that you are too old, too slow, too outdated, or too far past your peak, you are not describing reality. You are simply reinforcing a stereotype. Every time you repeat it, you make it a little more true. Not because it was true to begin with, but because you are living down to it.
Ten ways to challenge your own age related self limiting beliefs
Catch the language. Start noticing when you say things like "At my age..." or "I'm too old to..." or "That ship has sailed." These phrases feel like statements of fact, but they are judgements. Write them down when you catch them. Seeing them on paper takes away some of their power.
Ask, whose voice is that? When you hear yourself declaring that you are past it, ask where that belief actually came from. Is it yours? Or did you absorb it from a manager, a recruiter, a newspaper headline, or a throwaway comment from a colleague? Most of our age beliefs are inherited, not earned.
Look at the evidence, properly. One in three UK workers is over 50. The over 65s have the highest self-employment rate of any age group. The state pension age is rising because people are living and working longer. The economy needs you. The data does not support the story you are telling yourself. Ask yourself, where is my evidence that supports this self-limiting belief?
Separate ageism from self-ageism. Yes, some employers discriminate. That is their problem, and it needs to change. But do not let their prejudice become your identity. A recruiter's bias is not evidence that you are "too" anything. It is simply them exercising personal choice, which we know is fraught with biases, often subconscious. Resist accepting their judgement.
Reframe experience as capital, not baggage. Thirty years of experience is not a liability. It is a resource that no 28-year-old can replicate. You have navigated recessions, restructures, leadership challenges, and organisational politics. You will have adapted, transferred your skills, learned, and developed. That is not obsolescence or being "stuck in your ways." That is wisdom, and it has commercial value.
Find your counter examples. Who do you know, personally or publicly, who started something significant after 50? After 60? After 70? Build a mental library of people who refused to accept the age narrative. My aunt moved to India at 83 and lived there for 20 years. What is your equivalent?
Stop comparing yourself to your 30-year-old self. You are not that person anymore, and you are not supposed to be. You are someone with more insight, more emotional intelligence, more self-awareness, and a far clearer sense of what actually matters. That is not decline. That is growth.
Audit your inputs. What are you reading, watching, and listening to? If your media diet is full of narratives about decline and irrelevance after 50, change it. Seek out stories of reinvention, late-life achievement, and purpose-driven careers. What you feed your mind shapes what you believe about yourself and what might be possible.
Take one bold action. Self-limiting beliefs thrive in inaction. They weaken the moment you do something that contradicts them. Apply for that role. Start that project. Pitch that idea. Book that course. Write that book! You do not need to feel confident first. Confidence comes from doing, not from waiting until you feel ready.
Get support. You do not have to dismantle decades of internalised ageism alone. A good coach can help you identify the beliefs that are holding you back, challenge them with evidence, and rebuild a narrative about your career and next chapter that is based on who you actually are, not on how old you happen to be.
The real question
Ageism is real. But internalised ageism may be doing more damage to your career than any employer ever has. The research is clear. What you believe about your age directly affects your health, your performance, your confidence, and your willingness to act. Beliefs, unlike your date of birth, can be changed.
So before you decide you are too old, ask yourself, is that a fact? Or is it a story you have been told so many times that you started believing it?
If you are navigating a career or life transition and suspect that age-related self-limiting beliefs may be holding you back, I offer a free discovery call to explore what is really going on and what might be possible. Visit vickyrusslifecoach.com or find and message me on Instagram @vickyrusscoach.
Read more from Victoria (Vicky) Russ
Victoria (Vicky) Russ, Managing Director and Leadership Coach
Vicky Russ is a leadership coach and former CEO with over 20 years’ experience across the public, health and education sectors. She specialises in leadership, transformation and helping leaders navigate complex change and life transitions. Her work focuses on supporting leaders to maintain performance while creating psychologically safe, high-performing cultures. Vicky is also a teacher of Positive Psychology Leadership and brings a practical, human approach to even the most challenging situations. She is passionate about “protecting the protectors” and helping leaders move from pressure to purpose.
References:
Centre for Ageing Better (2025). The State of Ageing 2025: Work.
Hays (2025). Eight in ten (81%) older workers say their chances of securing a role have been lowered due to age.
Levy, B. (2009). Stereotype Embodiment: A Psychosocial Approach to Aging. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(6), 332–336.
Levy, B., Slade, M., Kunkel, S. and Kasl, S. (2002). Longevity Increased by Positive Self-Perceptions of Aging. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(2), 261–270.
Office for National Statistics (2026). Employment in the UK.
Schweinsberg, M. et al. (2023). Internalization of Negative Societal Views on Old Age into Self-Perceptions of Aging: Exploring Factors Associated with Self-Directed Ageism. BMC Geriatrics, 23, 823.
Women and Equalities Committee (2025). Ageism in the Workplace.
Workers Union (2025). UK Businesses Sleepwalking into Demographic Time Bomb as Older Workforce Surge Looms.
