August 4, 2025
How to attract senior talent to your UK company
Attracting experienced professionals in the UK, especially those over 50, can feel challenging. However, with the right recruitment strategy, your company can access a highly skilled, motivated and often overlooked talent pool. Whether you’re hiring for full-time, part-time or remote roles, the key is to approach recruitment in a way that speaks to what mature workers are truly looking for.
In this guide, we’ll explore proven strategies that help UK employers attract and retain senior talent. From overcoming age bias to adapting your employer brand and recruitment process, we’ll show you how to position your company as an organisation where experienced professionals feel genuinely valued – and excited to join.
1. How Do You Attract Senior Professionals Over 50? Start With Inclusive Recruitment Practices
If you want to attract older workers, your recruitment process needs to include them from the start. Remove language from your job descriptions that can signal that older applicants might not be welcome, such as ‘digital native’ or ‘fast-paced environment’. Instead, use clear, age-inclusive language and highlight the real skills and outcomes you’re seeking.
Review your application process, too. You might unknowingly have been filtering CVs based on graduation year, or over-emphasising rapid career progression. Small but effective tweaks to your messaging can show experienced professionals that your company values what they bring to your organisation, such as their knowledge, leadership and resilience.
Additionally, consider implementing blind recruitment practices that conceal any identifying and potentially biasing information about candidates. This minimises unconscious bias and ensures a fair evaluation of all applicants.
2. Build an Age-Inclusive Culture That Retains Senior Talent
Once you’ve removed barriers at the application stage, the next step is to build an age-diverse workplace where over-50s feel like they truly belong. Inclusion isn’t just about hiring – it’s about culture. Review your company culture to see if experienced professionals are represented in your leadership team, and if your employee benefits support people at different life stages, including those caring for ageing parents or planning semi-retirement.
Building a genuinely age-inclusive culture might include mentorship opportunities, phased retirement options or mid-life career development plans. When your company culture shows that it supports professionals throughout their entire career, you’ll more easily attract people who want to grow with you, not just for a few years but for the long term.
3. Give Senior Talent What They’re Looking for in a UK Employer
To attract senior talent, it’s important to understand what matters most to them. While competitive pay is a factor, many mature workers are looking for more than a salary. Purpose, flexibility and respect are often top of the list. Professionals over 50 want roles that allow them to make a meaningful contribution, work with autonomy and get involved in something that aligns with their values.
72% of workers aged 50 and older cite flexible hours as a priority. Implementing flexible working, including remote or hybrid options, demonstrates a commitment to accommodating the diverse needs of your workforce. Clarity around workload, work-life balance and progression is also key to attracting senior talent. By focusing your recruitment messaging around these areas, you’ll show that you understand what experienced professionals are seeking – and that you offer it.
4. Retain Experienced Professionals With a Powerful Retention Strategy
Hiring is one part of the equation, but retaining experienced hires is just as important. Think about what your company is doing to keep over-50s engaged, supported and growing. Are you offering continuous professional development? Are senior staff included in leadership programmes or innovation teams?
Retention strategies that work well include offering personalised career development plans, creating space for knowledge-sharing, and providing experienced professionals with opportunities to coach or mentor others. They’re powerful ways to increase loyalty and keep valuable skills and institutional knowledge within your business.
5. Find Mature Employees in the UK Without the Hiring Headache
Finding the right senior talent shouldn’t mean searching through hundreds of irrelevant applications. Experienced was built specifically to connect UK companies with experienced professionals aged 50+ who are qualified and motivated.
By tapping into our curated network, you can find experienced professionals who are actively looking for roles that you’re hiring for – whether that’s in HR, Finance, Legal, Admin, Consulting, or more. It’s a simpler, smarter way to find the right professionals who not only fit your requirements and your culture, but also enhance your team.
Ready to Start Hiring Experienced Professionals for Your UK Company?
Recruiting your next experienced professional doesn’t have to be a challenge. With the right workplace culture, recruitment process and a curated platform like Experienced that connects experienced professionals in the UK directly to you, you can find the perfect fit faster and with less hassle.
CTA: Start your journey today by signing up for the waitlist. You’ll be notified when Experienced goes live, and we can start matching professionals to your open roles.
