National Employability Day 2026: Is employment support doing enough for older workers?
Today is National Employability Day, an annual opportunity to highlight the contribution of employment support in helping people move into work, writes Elena Boninsegni, our External Affairs Manager for Work.
This year’s theme focuses on the government’s 80% employment ambition and the sector’s role in delivering it. But it also prompts a broader question about whether we are focusing on the right parts of the workforce to achieve it.
The government’s ambition of an 80% employment rate has put renewed focus on helping more people into work. Much of the discussion has centred on young people, and rightly so. But achieving that ambition will also depend on what happens at the other end of the labour market.
National Employability Day is a timely reminder of this broader picture. People in their 50s and 60s are central to reaching that ambitious employment target, yet far less attention has been paid to them. The number of people aged 50 to state pension age who are out of work but say they would like a job is very similar to the number of NEETs, yet we are still waiting for the government to acknowledge the former as a crisis requiring urgent action.
With the state pension age rising and people expected to work longer, it is important to ask whether the employment support system is doing enough to help them stay in and return to work.
Employment support is not delivering for older workers
Recent data paints a fairly consistent and concerning picture. As people get older, they are less likely to move from benefits into work. People aged 50 and over are far less likely to do so compared to those under 50 – by more than a third. This raises a question about whether employment support is being designed with all age groups in mind.
We see the same story when we look across major programmes. On the Work and Health Programme, a voluntary offer for people with health conditions and disabilities, people aged 18-24 are twice as likely to move into work as those aged 60 and over.
Looking ahead, it is too early to judge how the Connect to Work programme, a new locally delivered employment support offer replacing the Work and Health Programme, will perform. But early signs are not promising. Even though people aged 50 and over make up almost half of those out of work due to ill-health, they account for only around one in five (22%) participants in the Connect to Work programme. The same pattern shows in WorkWell, a pilot bringing together health and employment support, where people aged 50 and over account for just one in three (33%) participants.
Taken together, this suggests that the system is not consistently reaching, or working effectively for, the very group it is likely to rely on more in the future. This is not good news for the government’s aspirations of an 80% employment rate.
The reality of targeted support for older workers
If the evidence on all-age employment support already paints a concerning picture, what happens when we look at targeted support for older workers?
The government has recently published an evaluation of its ‘50+ package’, which brings together three main elements: additional Work Coach time, 50PLUS Champions, and the Mid-life MOT.
But even here, the evidence is not encouraging.
The first element is 40 minutes of additional Work Coach time, spread over nine months. The evaluation finds no impact on whether people move into work, which is perhaps not surprising given the limited scale of the intervention.
The second element is 50PLUS Champions. These are staff who support Jobcentres through training, employer engagement and local events. They are viewed positively by Work Coaches, but there are only 77 across Great Britain, covering a network of more than 600 Jobcentres.
The final element of the package is the Mid-life MOT. When the government refers to this, it is really talking about two separate things. The first is a structured conversation in Jobcentres to help people think about work, skills, health and planning for later life. The second is a separate digital Mid-life MOT website, which is open to anyone.
The Jobcentre-based approach is sometimes seen as helpful, but evidence of its impact is limited. As for the digital offer, the evaluation only looked at the number of users, making it impossible to understand who is using it, or how helpful it really is. What we do know is that awareness of the service remains very low – only 2% of 40–75-year-olds say they have ever heard of it. By failing to properly evaluate the effectiveness of these interventions, the government cannot hope to learn what does and does not work.
Taken together, the ‘50+ package’ is a relatively small set of interventions, and the evidence suggests it is not yet shifting outcomes at the scale required.
What good looks like for older workers
Ultimately, National Employability Day is not only about recognising the contribution of employment support, but about asking what good looks like – and how to build more of it.
At a local level, there are many examples of good practice that point us in the right direction. In Southampton, the Adults Employment Hub brings together employment support with a wider network of local services to provide tailored, joined-up support for people aged over 50. In Middlesbrough, the Steps to Your Goal pilot offers structured and personalised support, focusing on individual circumstances and confidence building alongside employment goals.
On a day that celebrates the sector’s impact, these examples show that targeted support for older workers can and does work. The challenge now is to ensure this kind of support is backed by sustained investment and reaches more of those who could benefit. If the ambition is to reach 80% employment, then ensuring that support reaches older workers will be essential.
State of Ageing 2025
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