Why I Became “Obsessed” with the 100 Year Career
According to the Institute of Longevity we face a ‘Strategy Deficit” meaning while 83% of business leaders agree that longer working lives are inevitable, only 12% of employers have a formal longevity strategy. The ONS figures show there were 16,600 centenarians in the UK in 2024, this has doubled from 8,300 in 2004. Doubled! And 39% is the share of core skills that will be disrupted. (World Economic Forum). We’re living longer, and differently – this has to impact work, workplaces and workers. I really think we urgently need to consider careers in this age of longevity, AI, Mounjaro, skills diversity – and therefore employment and people strategies.
I have spent the last decade studying how people navigate their working lives impacted by frontier technology. The transitions, the setbacks, the reinventions, the quiet moments where someone realises the path they were on no longer exists or no longer fits. I've recently sat with executives who feel invisible at fifty, with women returning from career breaks who are treated as if their skills didn’t matter while they were gone. And working in Henley and Reading with graduates I see their anxiety in facing a labour market that the generation above them wouldn't recognise, not least because of GenAI and recruitment.
What struck me early on, and has only grown clearer with research is that we are still working on a career mindset for a world that no longer exists.
The model most of us inherited was built around a simple arc: educate, work, retire. It assumed careers of around thirty to forty years. It assumed a relatively stable relationship between skills acquired early and value delivered throughout. It assumed retirement as an ending that most people could access and afford. None of those assumptions still hold.
A child born in the UK today has a better than living to one hundred than previous generations. The average working life is already extending to fifty years for many professionals. And artificial intelligence is not gradually reshaping work it is transforming it at a pace that outstrips every organisational development system I have ever seen.
That is what my research at the World of Work Institute has been building towards. And it is what the A 100 Year Career sets out to address through the LAR framework: Last, Adapt, Rise. Three pillars that together describe what navigating a long, meaningful, and equitable working life genuinely requires. It considers this challenge from a business perspective as well as for us all as workers
What makes the challenge particularly urgent right now is AI. I am not someone who believes AI will simply eradicate human work. My research on Industry 5.0 and Human+AI collaboration points to something more nuanced and more interesting. AI redefines the value of human contribution. The roles that will matter most in a hundred-year career are the ones that are distinctly human: ethical judgement, relational intelligence, creative synthesis, the ability to lead with wisdom accumulated over decades. The challenge is to not just have The Human In The Loop – but the humans to be the loop.
This is precisely why I chose the speakers joining us at the WOW Conference on 10th September with such care. First to announce is Dr Tatiana Rowson and Dr Kelly Sloan, both Associate Professors at Henley Business School, open the day with a joint keynote drawn from their groundbreaking 2025 book Personal Leadership in the Age of No Retirement. Their work challenges something most of us have accepted without question: that retirement is a natural horizon towards which careers move. Their book, provides what they call a flexible, inclusive, and individualised model for sustainable working lives. In their own words, the premise is simple and radical: we are living longer and healthier lives than ever before shouldn't our work lives adapt to reflect that?
Second speaker announcement is Anthony Willson-Topham from the leadership and culture consultancy firm You Collective who are working with major clients across sectors looking at their people strategy with creative mind. Anthony will share his findings be delivering a vital keynote on the Engagement and Employability in the 100 Year Career. He will challenge us to look beyond the limited shelf life of technical skills and instead unlock enduring human strengths like curiosity, adaptability, and creativity.
And the conference on 10th September details here. If you wanted to take part in the 100 Year Career Questionnaire – you’ll love it. Let me know here!
To find out more about the upcoming World of Work Conference: The 100 Year Career please click here.
ILC: https://ilcuk.org.uk/100-year-life-and-the-longevity-opportunity/
WEF: https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/in-full/3-skills-outlook/