Which UK Employers Are Actually Hiring Over-50s

In part 1 of this series, I looked at what the data says about the UK job market for over-50s: high overall employment, but a real hiring penalty at the point of application. This post is about the other side of that picture, the employers who are actively working against that penalty, and what they’re doing that others aren’t.

easyJet: a career pivot, not a last resort

easyJet is the clearest current example.

What stands out isn’t just the numbers, it’s the framing. easyJet’s recruitment messaging positions cabin crew as a genuine career pivot, open regardless of age, rather than an entry-level role aimed at school leavers. One report describes this as building on a “Returnships” approach, specifically aimed at empty nesters and early retirees looking for a structured way back into paid work. That’s a deliberate recruitment strategy, not a happy accident.

easyJet isn’t the only one

It’s tempting to treat easyJet as an outlier, but it isn’t. Working Wise maintains a list of age-friendly employers in the UK that currently includes the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Education, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, John Lewis Partnership, McDonald’s, Next, Sky, and Starbucks. That’s a genuinely broad spread, covering public sector, retail, hospitality, FMCG, and media, which tells you this isn’t a single-sector phenomenon confined to airlines.

What age-friendly employers actually do differently

Across the employers doing this well, the same practices keep showing up. They use age-neutral language in job adverts rather than terms that quietly signal a preference for younger candidates. They strip unnecessary age indicators out of application forms, things like graduation dates that serve no purpose beyond flagging roughly how old you are. They offer flexible working from day one rather than treating it as a perk you have to earn or negotiate for. And they build an explicitly age-positive culture rather than leaving inclusion as an unstated assumption.

The Centre for Ageing Better’s Age-friendly Employer Pledge goes further than recruitment messaging. Employers who sign it commit to analysing their own age data, specifically checking whether older applicants who apply are actually reaching interview stage at a comparable rate to younger candidates. That’s a meaningful detail, because it means the pledge is about outcomes, not intentions. It also covers retention and progression, not just getting people through the door, on the basis that age-friendly hiring only means something if older employees are also being developed and promoted once they’re in.

Why certain sectors show up more than others

You’ll notice a pattern in where the visible openings are: frontline and customer-facing roles, logistics, travel, retail, public sector, and other service-based work. These sectors tend to place real weight on reliability, judgement, and interpersonal skill, qualities that don’t diminish with age in the way that raw physical speed might in a small number of specific roles. That’s not to say other sectors are closed to older workers, but if you’re looking for where the door is currently open widest, this is a useful starting point.

What to take from this if you’re job searching

The practical takeaway is that “the market doesn’t want older workers” isn’t accurate as a blanket statement. A specific, identifiable group of employers is actively recruiting for it, has said so publicly, and has changed its process to make it happen. That’s a much better starting point for a job search than sending generic applications into a market you assume is uniformly against you.

In the next post in this series, I’ll cover how to position yourself for these opportunities: what to change on your CV, how flexible working expectations should shape your search, and how to prepare for the bias that, realistically, still exists even at age-friendly employers.

Where to start