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In London the median age of the person controlling a company is 45 and 37.7 per cent are aged 50 and over, across 1,395,436 controlling positions. In the South West the median is 50 and 52.2 per cent are aged 50 and over, across 361,487. The South East is close behind at 50.3 per cent. Every other region and nation sits between 42.6 per cent (North East) and 47.8 per cent (Northern Ireland). Among companies above the small-company threshold the median age of the controller is 59 to 61 in every region.

Across every active British company, the median age of the person in control is 47. 44.3 per cent are aged 50 and over and 20.7 per cent are aged 60 and over. Among the 30,999 controlling positions in companies above the small-company threshold, those filing medium, full or group accounts, the median is 60. 79.8 per cent are aged 50 and over and 51.6 per cent are aged 60 and over. The single most common age in that group is 58.

2,022,390 of the 5,241,049 controlling positions in active British companies are held by people born between 1965 and 1980, which is 38.6 per cent. Among the 30,999 positions in companies filing medium, full or group accounts the share is 42.4 per cent. One person can hold several positions, so these are positions rather than individuals.

As a company gets more substantial, the person controlling it gets older, and this holds in every filing category. The median age of the person in control is 48 across 1,851,337 positions in micro-entities and 62 across 11,481 positions in companies filing full accounts, a gap of 14 years. The share aged 50 and over rises from 46.8 per cent to 82.5 per cent across the same two categories.

The average age of a chief executive across Britain's 150 largest listed companies was 56.2 years at 30 April 2025. Thirty-two of the 150 were under fifty and one was over sixty-five, so around 117 sat between fifty and sixty-five. Non-executive directors averaged 61 and chairs 65.3. The generation running these companies is not the generation chairing them.

Korn Ferry reports that the average age of board directors is 61. It says 14% of last year's new directors were aged 50 or younger, an uptick from the year before. It also reports that roughly two-thirds of companies in the S&P 500 index mandate retirement for board members at age 75, up from age 72 six years ago.

A working paper reports that average CEO age rose by more than 10 years, reaching 61 in 2023. The paper also reports that CEO age at appointment rose from under 48 to 55 years over the same period. The figures come from data on more than 50,000 CEOs drawn from BoardEx, covering the period since 2000.

The 2021 census counted 3,547,854 managers, directors and senior officials in England and Wales. 40.4 per cent were aged 35 to 49 and 33.7 per cent were 50 to 64, so 74.1 per cent sat between 35 and 64. Only 2.6 per cent were under 25. The 1,195,946 of them aged 50 to 64 are in the same age band as the people the Department for Work and Pensions counts as out of work and not looking.

What happened next, read from each company’s current register entry: 34.3 per cent were bought by an unconnected company, 26.3 per cent restructured under a holding company or the owner’s own vehicle, 23.9 per cent passed to another individual, and 15.4 per cent have no owner of 25 per cent or more recorded. Across all active companies seven in ten handovers pass to another person; at substantial companies, where the departing owner had a median age of 57, the largest single outcome is a sale.

Owners whose substantial company was bought by another company had a median age of 55 when they let go. Owners who handed the company to another individual had a median age of 62, and two thirds of them were past 55. Selling happens seven years earlier than passing on.

Substantial British companies bought by an unconnected company after their owner let go: 557 in 2017, 595 in 2018, 662 in 2019, 593 in 2020, 916 in 2021, 739 in 2022, 762 in 2023, 870 in 2024 and 824 in 2025. The peak is 2021. The two years after it fell and the count has not returned to that level. The owners letting go had a median age of 57.

Since 2016 the register has recorded when a person stops controlling a company, and those entries stay in the file. Across the 21,340 substantial British companies where a registered owner ceased control, the departing owner had a median age of 57, and 57.2 per cent were 55 or over when they let go. Employed chief executives leave at 59. Owners go two years earlier.

Across Europe's large companies the average age of a departing chief executive in 2025 was 59.1, up from 58.6 the year before. Incoming chief executives averaged 55.7, about a year and a half older than the year before. The average tenure of a departing chief executive was 7.4 years.

Sixty-one per cent of sitting chief executives said they were considering another chief executive role. Of the former chief executives in the same survey, seven per cent had taken one. Fifty-four per cent had gone to board service instead, advising a board rather than running a company.

The employment rate for people aged 50 to 64 years was 72.2% in 2026, an increase of 0.6 percentage points over the past year, though this change is not statistically significant. The employment rate gap between people aged 35 to 49 years and those aged 50 to 64 years was 12.9 percentage points in 2026, down from 14.1 percentage points in 2025 and 14.5 percentage points in 2023, a statistically significant decrease. The economic inactivity rate for those aged 50 to 64 was 25.7% in 2026, down from 26.1% in 2025 but still above the 2019 pre-pandemic rate of 25.5%. The average age of exit from the labour market in 2026 was 65.8 years for men, unchanged from 2025, and 65.1 years for women, up from 64.7 years in 2025.

Through the 2010s the redundancy rate for people aged 50 and over ran above the rate for those aged 35 to 49, reaching 1.43 times it in 2018 and 1.41 in 2019. That pattern has closed. In 2023 and 2024 the over-fifty rate fell below the 35 to 49 rate, and in 2026 the highest redundancy rate of any age band is among people aged 35 to 49. The table is titled Redundancies by industry, age, sex and re-employment rates. The September 2026 edition contains no re-employment figures.

In May to July 2026, 9,515,000 people aged 50 to 64 were in work, an employment rate of 72.2 per cent. In the same months of 2019 the rate was 72.7 per cent. For people aged 35 to 49 the rate was 85.1 per cent, a gap of 12.9 points. 3,389,000 people aged 50 to 64 were economically inactive, 25.7 per cent of the age group, against 25.2 per cent in 2019. 277,000 were unemployed, 2.8 per cent. The number of 50 to 64s in work has risen by around 1.9 million since 2012, when the rate was 66.0 per cent.

In May to July 2026, 317,000 people aged 50 and over were unemployed, 2.7 per cent of the economically active in the age group. 101,000 of them had been unemployed for more than twelve months, 32.0 per cent, and 62,000 for more than two years. Among unemployed people aged 25 to 49 the share over twelve months was 29.7 per cent. Among 18 to 24s it was 22.5 per cent. Across everyone aged 16 and over it was 26.0 per cent. A year earlier the over-fifty share was 28.2 per cent.

In 2025, 2.9 million people aged fifty to state pension age were not in employment, education, training or retirement. That is 21 per cent of the age group. Fifty-five per cent of them, 1.6 million, have a long-term illness or disability. Seventeen per cent are caring. Eleven per cent are unemployed and searching. Nearly 925,000 were interested in or actively looking for work, the most since 2020. The number rose from 2.4 million to 3 million between 2018 and 2020 and has stayed there. 1.7 million are women and 1.2 million are men.

People aged 50 and over are far less likely to move from benefits into work than those under 50, by more than a third, the Centre for Ageing Better reports. On the Work and Health Programme, people aged 18-24 are twice as likely to move into work as those aged 60 and over. People aged 50 and over make up almost half of those out of work due to ill-health, yet they account for only around one in five (22%) participants in the Connect to Work programme, and one in three (33%) participants in WorkWell. Only 2% of people aged 40-75 say they have ever heard of the digital Mid-life MOT service.

L&G research found that 5 million people aged 40 to 54 are not on track for an adequate retirement, based on a study of more than 8,000 people conducted by Public First. It said the average pension pot for a 47-year-old is £27,000, and that the median pension saving for a 45 to 54-year-old in work is also £27,000, according to the Wealth and Assets Survey. Renters in this age group have median pots of £4,000 and part-time workers £6,000. The report also found that 41% of 40 to 54-year-olds who are in work but not saving into a pension cite affordability concerns.

A poll of 4,000 UK adults found the average age at which someone becomes undesirable to recruiters is 55. More than a third (36 per cent) of respondents felt job applicants were viewed as less desirable at 50 or younger, and 8 per cent said the cut-off was as early as 40. People aged 45 to 54 were the most likely to say candidates were seen as less desirable at 50 or younger, at 41 per cent. Only 10 per cent said they did not believe there was any age at which someone became less desirable to hire.

One in five people aged 50 to state pension age were not in employment, training, education or retirement (NETER), compared with 13 per cent of 16 to 24 year olds classed as NEET, according to a survey by the Centre for Ageing Better. Separately, 918,000 people aged 50 to state pension age were interested in or actively seeking work between October and December 2025, up 22 per cent in two years and the highest figure since 2020.

The UK has an employment rate of around 66% among people aged 55-64, higher than the United States and France but lower than Japan, Sweden, New Zealand, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, according to the report. The report also found that an additional 15% of the 50+ age group were in employment two years later as a result of participating in a Sector-based Work Academy Programme, a higher impact than for younger age groups.

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees aged 40 to 49 was £44,244 in April 2025. For those aged 50 to 59 it was £41,866, and for those aged 60 and over £36,467. The median hourly rate, which sets aside hours worked, ran the same way: £22.60 at 40 to 49, £21.36 at 50 to 59, £18.39 at 60 and over. Hourly pay in the fifties rose 7.3 per cent over the year, the fastest of any age band.

The employment rate for people aged 50 to 64 years was 71.6% in 2025, having increased by 0.7 percentage points over the past year. The economic inactivity rate for this age group was 26.1% in 2025, down from 27.3% in 2024. The unemployment rate for those aged 50 to 64 increased to 3.1% in 2025 from 2.4% in 2024. The average age of exit from the labour market reached 65.8 years for men and 64.7 years for women in 2025, the highest recorded levels on ONS data since annual reporting began in 1984.

A quarter of 55–64-year-olds with private pensions they have not yet started taking have less than £30,000 in those pensions, and around one in five of this age group have no private pension wealth at all, based on the ONS Wealth and Assets Survey 2020–22. Women aged 55–64 with private pension wealth hold a median of £105,000, estimated at nearly £90,000 below men's, using the same survey. Around 28% of 55–64-year-olds rent, according to the DWP Family Resources Survey 2022/23. The typical saver first accesses a defined contribution pension at age 60, according to the FCA Financial Lives Survey 2024.

Over twenty years of data, people over fifty who lost a job and found another returned on hourly pay 9.5 per cent below what they had been earning. They also took longer to get back. Fewer than two in three were in work again within six months, against around three in four of those under fifty.