On October 1st the UK introduced new age discrimination legislation but research suggests that IT companies are struggling to understand, implement or pay heed to it. This begs the question, is IT inherently ageist?

Moreover is IT in the City, a place considered to be the domain of the young, even more susceptible?

According to research released by recruitment firm The IT Job Board 71.9% of UK IT professionals believe that ageism is more prevalent in the technology sector than any other. Half of the respondents believed they had been hindered in the search for a job because they were too old, while 12.5% believed that they had been hindered because they were too young. 5% said they had been forced to take a pay cut because they sat the wrong side of an age barrier.

The problem is not just limited to those considered not young or dynamic enough, seemingly the barrier to entry to an IT career has always been a 'minimum of 3 years experience' - all factors now considered illegal to consider when searching for a new employee under the new directives.

But does the nature of IT, fast moving, changing and evolving, limit those predisposed to the profession? Arguably yes, but IT is generally a team game and a balanced team made up of young dynamic individuals as well as experienced old hands will likely always win out of one skewed to one extreme or the other.

Those likely to see the biggest issues with the legislation will be recruiters who will have to be much more careful with the job descriptions they post for clients. The reality for the IT workers will be little change.

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