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What Are the Best Career Change Programmes for People Over 50?
People over 50 often face unique challenges in career change: ageism, redundancy, evolving identity and a desire for purposeful work. Several programmes cater for career change and the mid life professional. This overview compares prominent options based on audience, cost, evaluation method, participant profile, and user satisfaction (via Trustpilot ratings). We welcome your contributions and additional thoughts.
For people over 50, changing careers can be a major life transition often prompted by redundancy, health changes, a desire for more purposeful work, or shifting financial needs. While there’s no shortage of career development programmes, few are tailored specifically to the challenges and opportunities faced in midlife and later life.
This post offers an overview of some of the most visible career change programmes available to people aged 50+, comparing the main audience, pricing, content evaluation methods, and participant profile
Why Midlife Career Support Needs a Different Approach
Career support in midlife is not simply a rerun of early career advice. It needs to account for factors such as:
- Age related bias in recruitment processes
- Re-entry to the workforce after breaks or time out for caring
- Shifting identities, priorities and changes in financial position
- The growing desire to contribute meaningfully whilst balancing energy, health and other responsibilities.
Programmes vary significantly in how they approach these themes, and in how they measure whether their interventions make a meaningful difference.
Evaluation Approaches: From Feedback Forms to Statistical Testing
While most programmes rely on self-reported outcomes such as confidence levels or course satisfaction, the degree of rigour varies:
- Brave Starts is currently the only programme using pre/post testing combined with statistical analysis (paired-sample T-tests) to assess whether changes in confidence, clarity, or readiness to act are statistically significant.
- Other programmes typically rely on engagement data, qualitative feedback, or net promoter scores (NPS), which are useful but more subjective.
This variation in evaluation methods makes it important for individuals and funders to ask how outcomes are being measured when comparing support options.
