The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 came into force in October 2006 to comply with the European Equal Treatment Framework Directive (2000/78/EC). These regulations mean that age discrimination in employment is unlawful in the same way as discrimination on gender, race, disability, sexual orientation or religion and belief. Some countries, for example the USA, have had age discrimination legislation for many years. However the UK legislation protects people of all ages, unlike the law in the USA which only protects those over 40.

Age discrimination can take many forms. In legal terms, it broadly follows the same pattern as existing forms of discrimination law in the UK, namely direct and indirect discrimination, victimisation and harassment, although there are some differences. The regulations have also had a wide impact on other areas of employment law including unfair dismissal and redundancy provisions.

The regulations cover employment and vocational training. This includes access to help and guidance, recruitment, promotion, development, termination, perks and pay.
The regulations cover people of all ages, both old and young.
The regulations do not just apply to all employers, but also to providers of vocational training, trade unions, professional associations, employer organisations and trustees, and managers of occupational pension schemes.
Goods, facilities and services are not included in the regulations, although a group of non-governmental organisations such as Age Concern have been working on proposals to combat age discrimination in access to goods and services for some time.
The pre-October 2006 upper age limits for unfair dismissal and redundancy no longer apply.
A national default retirement age of 65 applies making compulsory retirement below age 65 unlawful (unless objectively justified). This has, however been challenged at EU level.
All empoyees have the ‘right to request’ to work beyond the default retirement age of 65 (or any other justified retirement age set by the organisation). All employers must give advance notice of an approaching planned retirement date and must follow the ‘duty to consider’ procedure to address those requests.
Occupational pensions are covered by the regulations, as are employer contributions to personal pensions. However, the regulations generally allow pension schemes to work as they did before.
The regulations do not affect state pensions.