To ask what your plan is to defeat ageism + hold on to your earning power in your 40s + 50s

[ThePassageOfTime]

I have a role leading a specialist team in tech. although I'm not a coder. I'm 43 and acutely aware of the trend to make older, more expensive workers redundant and the struggles in securing a new role. I'm expensive and assume I will eventually be laid off. This trend disproportionately affects women.

I'm working on the assumption that unless I go into civil service or similar I will be facing redundancy at some point for my late forties onwards, regardless of how current I keep my skills.

So I assume I'll have to either free lance or start a business.

How do other women in corporate roles feel about this threat/trend?

My pension is a shit show so need to work til I drop. Haven't got far to go on mortgage though and am saving for kids university etc to minimize overheads in my 50s

And yes am aware I'm privileged to be in this position in the first place.

I'm probably similar to you in that I work in tech, although I don't lead a team. I'm also a contractor and have been for around 15 years (I'm 50). I started contracting when I got made redundant, so following redundancy is the perfect way to start. There's virtually no risk. Age is much less of a barrier when you're a contractor too, since clients are looking for experience. They don't care how old you are. My concern for the next 10-15 years isn't financial, but rather whether I can imagine still doing my job when I'm 60!

I know loads of women and men in 40s-50s working in tech fields without any issues at all. I'd recommend being competent enough to be worth being "expensive" to a business, or accept less money.

The supply/demand graphs apply to people as well as goods.

The issue is that now a lot of companies are prioritising cost over value so sometimes it doesn't matter how good you are. In their eyes you're too expensive.

I’m an accountant and don't recognise this (know it happens in other industries though). What I’ve done is made sure that I’m indispensable (as far as one can) and that I’ve got a roster of former bosses who would find me a job tomorrow scattered around the industry. But that would apply if I were a bloke too.

I understand what you’re saying. I work in finance and think the same, trying to keep my skills and knowledge up to date.

To be honest I am not sure I will want to work in the same type of role in 10 years so hopefully can do something different but still earn a reasonable wage.

I am 45 in a very similar role to you, I don’t have the same fear. I know that I am very experienced so could find another role. I have contracted before so would probably do that again if made redundant and couldn’t find another role within a decent timeframe.

My company is currently focusing on cost savings above all else which shows as we have too many, incapable, more junior staff. I am valued higher than ever at the moment because I have the skills and experience they need.

I've continued to gain promotions and increase my earnings substantially through my 40s and heading into my 50s dont expect that to change.

Maybe it's different by sector. I'm in the charity sector where experience is valued.

The key issue here is that the OP works in tech. That's not the same as finance, or charity, or public sector, or whatever. An offshore resource costs about 20% of what a local resource does and for companies focused on cost, that's attractive. So it often doesn't matter how good you are, or how much value you add, if you're too expensive, you're too expensive.

“Tech” is quite a broad church. Can you move industries whilst keeping a similar role, or focus on developing transferable skills which lend themselves to other paths? My industry has the opposite problem: it’s historically been a very “old” workforce and has sometimes had a bit of an image problem as a result and struggled to attract younger people, who go into other areas of finance which are perceived as more youthful and open.

I don’t think you’re going to be alone in needing to have a rethink about your career niche: developments in AI and just trends in international markets are going to have implications for a lot of people who twenty years ago may have assumed they could stay in their sector or industry for all or most of their careers.

OP I'm much younger than you, but experienced people are still preferred for leadership/non-technical roles. I work for a large firm and there are plenty of people your age about, including my bosses.

The other things to consider is that, while bright young things can supposedly self-learn/pick up flash new things. It takes years to become experts in enterprise technology, avoid common pitfalls.

Everybody is obsessed with bootcamps, web development , 'AWS cloud' (LOL) but they wouldn't know the first thing about, say VMWare. Or infrastructure fundamentals

Snazzy startups might not want to hire you but large companies certainly will. One of my colleagues for example 56 just went to work for FAANG. My blue chip large company also hired a couple. Personally I've been lucky to benefit from all these people who can dive deep into the fundamentals of something.

However, there's a major caveat with this - said fundamentals need to be enable pivoting or identifying the right problems. IME someone with 20 years experience of a single programming language , like Java isn't going to deliver much more value than someone with 10. Most companies don't need that detailed knowledge. 20 years enabling you to pick up any other programming language quicker is valued.

In my close to a decade I've already managed to learn 3 to a good level. I don't understand how some supposed experts can't do it.

@ILikeItWhatIsIt We had quite a few of our contractors becoming permies, citing their age leading to difficulty in getting contract jobs. In reality I think they just wanted to get a steady pension and retire somewhere.

I think that's quite a naive response. I'm extremely competent but I also have my eyes open.

That's good to hear.

I don't think ageism is as bad in the Charity sector as others

To clarify, I'm not a coder, more of a SME in an area of digital product.

There are other industries I could work in. But I do think ageism against women is more rife in the workplace than we care to admit

In tech and also not a coder, I’m in the product side of things.

I moved into contracting after a restructure. It was more of a mutual agreement with the company than a redundancy.

I was expensive and the expense was worth it for the 25% of my job that required 10+ years experience. But the other 75% of the role could have been done by someone younger who was willing to work themselves into the ground for a much lower wage. They couldn’t afford to loose me for the 25%, so instead were going to get rid of junior staff and make me take on some of their work (more work, same pay).

I told them I wouldn’t do that, so I left, they kept the more junior staff and contracted me back on a very favourable hourly rate doing just the 25%, which happens to be the part of the job I enjoy the most. Win / win.

I thought the same but as I've hit my 50s, I'm suddenly in demand.

People appreciate the experience and maturity I have all of a sudden. There's not much I haven't seen or done which is of comfort to them. I'm under no illusion that this will last forever!

I would also say don't rule out the impact of the menopause on your career. I got hit by both Covid and perimenopause at the same time. If you had asked me last year, I was tempted to give up work and go and live in a static caravan. Now on HRT and with some rest I am recovering slowly but a lot of women really struggle with their careers around this age because they are so bloody exhausted!

Do you mean something like a SAP or ServiceNow SME?

I'm 60 and work in tech marketing, as I have all my life.

You are right, I was made redundant a couple of times in my 50s, last time at the start of Covid. so now I target jobs where I build marketing teams from scratch.

So I work for small or young companies and develop the whole marketing plan, and deliver it on my own, until they grow enough to employ more team members.

It means that I have to be practical, willing to turn my hand to anything from running a budget, developing propositions & campaigns, managing suppliers and writing the business plan to data entry, content writing and setting up trade show stands.

So far it has worked. Most marketing people when they get to a certain level of seniority don't want to be bothered with the detail, whereas I enjoy it and it keep my skills current.

This happens in many sectors, not just tech. Teachers get expensive as they go to the top of the scale, lecturers/professors the same, and so the temptation in any cull is to get rid of your expensive staff. On the other hand, you do have to have people who can do the harder bits of the job or take more responsibility than a 25 year old. I don't think you can future-proof your job in any sector, all you can do is be as desirable as possible if you have to jump ship/get moved on. I'm in the uni sector and there are redundancies everywhere at present, so my best move is to sit tight and try to be the best value for money if it starts to come near my door.

Interesting. I'm also an accountant and I definitely recognise this. Culling older experienced staff to make space for younger staff with almost no experience to "progress" into higher grades beyond their expertise so that there is a convincing promotion carrot to entice enough grads to join the pipeline of minions doing grunt work for low pay.

And then people act surprised about the seemingly endless succession of audit failures and accounting scandals because important work is being done by people with 5 minutes experience, supervised by people with 10 minutes experience, because all the people with real expertise have been managed out to "save" money.

I think OP has a point here, and it's not disproven by people who happen to report different personal experiences.

Although there are exceptions, many companies are structured like a pyramid, with a broad base of young/inexperienced people, and a narrower top with fewer older staff/leaders. Along the way, people leave for all kinds of reasons - but it's not unreasonable to be middle-aged and feel a sense of unease when you see that there are fewer old people around and limited opportunities to grow.

It's nerve-wracking, but I would echo PP's points on trying to remain indispensable and staying in touch with former bosses who may be able to provide backup. I often feel that the only real security comes from moving upwards.

Moving upwards has its own challenges - performance at senior management level is much harder to measure, and it's often about whom you know. If you get a new manager who doesn't like you, or wants to bring in their own people as part of a 'transformation' you can kiss your job goodbye. The ones who succeed IME are very politically skilled.

The issue with 'older and more expensive' workers IME is that, in large companies, many have accumulated pay rises by virtue of long service. And not necessarily due to the value that experience brings to the business. If the incumbent left tomorrow, their externally hired replacement would be paid much less. It doesn't matter whether said replacement has 10 years of experience or 30, they're hired to do X role, for Y salary. While, for an internal hire the candidate just keeps whatever salary they came with, and continues to get pay rises.

Usually people see redundancies coming and manoeuvre out of the way. This is however very hard to do if your role is niche. But other companies might welcome said niche experience.

Career planning is a job in itself especially for an industry like tech where there are no fixed qualifications or career paths. However OP I think you're in a good position as team lead, to position yourself as a consultant , SME or technical leader.

I’m 64 and in tech/change (Business Analyst), and have constantly been employed albeit as a contractor rather than permanent. I do have desirable experience in a number of key vertical markets, but I think there is less ageism in this field than in many

Reread Somerset Maugham, I think.

Started my own business doing what I was employed to do.