BRAVE STARTS IN THE PRESS

Lucy Standing, co-founder of Brave Starts, highlights that experience acts as a powerful cognitive advantage, allowing seasoned professionals to spot hidden risks, make swift decisions, and bring emotional resilience to high-pressure environments. Despite making up a growing share of the workforce, professionals over 50 remain a critical blind spot in corporate hiring strategies. Bypassing midlife talent is a major missed corporate opportunity.
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Combatting the notion that age is a disadvantage, Brave Starts is instrumental in promoting experience as an essential driver of innovation. To reverse a systemic underutilisation of experienced workers, Lucy Standing outlines practical structural shifts, including urging employers to introduce dedicated career-changer schemes and prioritise actual performance over office presence. By reshaping the 50+ landscape, organisations can build genuinely resilient and innovative workforces.

Since 2000, the number of people working past 65 has more than doubled, now making up one in 25 of the UK workforce. While some delay retirement due to the cost-of-living crisis, many choose to stay active to boost their physical and mental health.
Yet, workplace ageism remains a barrier, with 24% of employers wrongly believing it makes little business sense to hire anyone over 50.

Brave Starts founder and psychologist Lucy Standing emphasises that this demographic represents an economy-boosting gift. Nine in ten employers actually rate older staff as performing just as well as, or better than, younger colleagues. To help professionals navigate later-stage careers, Brave Starts champions proactive steps like role redesign, personal outreach over ageist algorithms, and building supportive communities.

The traditional concept of retirement is increasingly viewed as an outdated "trap". With the number of people working past 65 more than doubling since 2000, staying professionally active is a "win-win" that bolsters the economy while improving employees' physical and cognitive health. Despite older staff often outperforming younger hires in retention, ageist corporate hiring remains a significant barrier.  
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‍Brave Starts is driving the conversation to dismantle these hurdles. Psychologist and co founder Lucy Standing urges employers to view an ageing population as a "gift" and "untapped potential", and to redesign roles for "pragmatic optimism". She emphasises that the focus must shift to helping people work on their own terms. To navigate this, Brave Starts advises professionals to plan career pivots in their fifties and prioritise networking over ageist job algorithms. Brave Starts helps individuals secure the purpose and fulfillment they expect from a 100-year life.

Brave Starts founder Lucy Standing challenges HR leaders to dismantle the pervasive assumption that older workers are "overqualified" or too expensive to hire. While 73% of professionals over 50 are eager to work, many remain stuck, unsure of their next move and facing a recruitment landscape where 40% cite ageism as a primary barrier.  

‍Brave Starts is instrumental in reframing this narrative by highlighting the immense "return on investment" these experienced professionals offer. Far from being stagnant, mid-life workers are often more loyal than early-career hires and possess a distinct "maturity and office sensitivity" that bolsters any team. Blind recruitment and peer-to-peer support schemes are proven methods to shift the focus from a dated CV to a candidate's actual potential. By auditing job descriptions for bias and training recruiters to recognise transferable skills, we can turn the "last acceptable bias" into a strategic advantage for the modern workforce.  

Forward-thinking employers are realising that mature professionals bring invaluable human judgment, emotional resilience, and an understanding of an ageing consumer market that technology cannot replicate. Yet, modern automated hiring processes are quietly shutting out experienced workers. While companies invest heavily in AI, crude algorithmic filters routinely discard highly capable over-50 candidates based on graduation dates or career gaps. This structural bias sidelines a vast, motivated talent pool.

Brave Starts is promoting this crucial conversation, with research in our 2026 book Age Against The Machine revealing that midlife professionals prioritise flexibility and continuous learning over high salaries. We help employers dismantle outdated hiring barriers and design adaptable roles that unlock accumulated wisdom. By modernising recruitment and supporting internal mobility, leadership teams can transform this overlooked demographic into a powerful competitive advantage.

Experts Lucy Standing (Brave Starts) and Eleanor Mills (NOON) explore the challenges and opportunities for professionals aged 50 and over, with a particular focus on the phenomenon of gendered ageism affecting women in the workplace.
The discussion touches on systemic exclusion via AI recruitment algorithms, blinkered corporate biases that can favour younger, cheaper staff, and tips to secure interviews and employment without burnout.

To combat these hurdles, midlife workers should strive to pinpoint their specific value, curate their list of target employers, promote the unique value of their experience, embrace reskilling, and occasionally bypass traditional application routes through networking or job shadowing. While the 50+ demographic possesses unmatched experience and wisdom, individuals must often adapt their strategies to remain visible in an ageist job market. Reaching 50 is not the beginning of the end, but a powerful midpoint for professional reinvention.

The job market presents distinct challenges for workers over 45, with OECD data revealing that employers are less likely to hire from this demographic, Traditional recruitment practices and a lack of structured midlife retraining pathways challenge experienced professionals navigating unexpected redundancies or career pivots. However, this cohort can excel in today's jobs market
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Brave Starts founder Lucy Standing leads the conversation around practical career reinvention. Brave Starts urges midlife professionals to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset, replace outdated CV strategies with clear, results-driven value propositions, and focus energy entirely on actionable steps within their control. Supportive peer groups are not only a great network, but an antidote to the isolation of job hunting. Brave Starts helps members realistically adapt to market demands and successfully secure employment, including emerging fractional opportunities.

As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes modern recruitment, a vital debate is emerging over whether algorithms or humans are best suited to spot true workplace potential. While automated screening promises speed, the growing consensus highlights that relying purely on data risks overlooking the nuanced skills and rich experience and job-readiness of mature professionals.

Brave Starts founder Lucy Standing champions the human-centric approach, demonstrating that empathy and direct dialogue are instrumental in uncovering talent. Rather than letting rigid CV filters disadvantage mid-career changers, she encourages employers look beyond standardised keywords. Technology can support administration, but recognising human potential requires judgement, conversation and empathy. The personal touch remains the most powerful tool for building diverse, balanced teams. 

The 2026 job market presents undeniable challenges, yet securing a rewarding new role remains entirely achievable with the right strategy. Industry experts analyse how rising competition is reshaping recruitment, urging jobseekers to embrace human connection to stand out.

Brave Starts founder Lucy Standing shares how members bypass crowded job boards to unlock hidden opportunities, revealing that nine out of ten secure roles through networking rather than standard applications, Lucy emphasises the power of proactive relationships and advises experienced workers to target employers who actively value lived experience, whilst remaining pragmatic about salary expectations. By swapping generic online applications for meaningful conversations, experienced professionals can confidently navigate shifting market realities and discover employers who value their unique potential.

Experienced professionals increasingly swap traditional full-time roles for the autonomy of "fractional" work. Recent data reveals that nearly half of UK businesses now hire fractional staff, integrating highly skilled professionals into strategic, part-time executive roles that offer job satisfaction and a better work-life balance.

Brave Starts founder Lucy Standing notes an exceptionally high appetite for portfolio careers among midlife professionals who desire to stay in senior roles on their own terms. While demand from individuals currently outstrips formal vacancies, Brave Starts is actively helping members navigate this landscape. Since these strategic roles are rarely advertised, the Brave Starts advises professionals to craft opportunities through existing networks, strong LinkedIn profiles, and by demonstrating tangible problem-solving value. Senior expertise remains invaluable when reshaped for the modern workplace.

The talk around midlife employment is shifting towards practical opportunity as forward-thinking UK employers actively target experienced professionals. Major sectors are discovering that decades of life experience are an unmissable asset.

Brave Starts identifies specific, age-friendly employers and maps out viable career transitions. Standout employers like Babcock International and FDM Group are successfully retraining midlife professionals into high-value project management and tech roles.

As standard corporate vacancies fluctuate, Brave Starts co-founder Lucy Standing emphasises the strategic rise and attraction of the "portfolio career." Building multiple income streams through flexible, purpose-driven roles, in consulting, mentoring, or growing sectors like retirement living, presents a pragmatic, empowering blueprint for over-50s to bypass recruitment biases and thrive.

In this Working It podcast, host Isabel Berwick highlights that a lack of organisational flexibility, boredom, and scarce internal mobility frequently drive experienced corporate professionals to seek new paths. Some find themselves locked out of the workplace after a break.

Brave Starts co-founder Lucy Standing joins the discussion to challenge these systemic workplace barriers, emphasising that the key to unlocking midlife potential lies in action, not just reflection. She notes that 49% of Brave Starts members ultimately re-engage with their current careers after realistically evaluating alternative options.
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Brave Starts encourages managers to grant employees time for internal job shadowing, and promotes the view that life experience significantly builds workplace resilience and invaluable "crystallised intelligence."