Updated March 2026
ACAS estimates that between 15% and 20% of UK adults are neurodivergent: autistic, dyslexic, dyspraxic, living with ADHD or another difference in how they process information. Put the other way round, roughly one in six of the people who apply to your roles will experience a standard recruitment process differently from the way it was designed, and many of them will be screened out for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they can do the job.
The cost of that shows up in the employment figures. The Buckland Review of Autism Employment, published by the government in February 2024, found that only around 3 in 10 working-age autistic people are in employment, against around 5 in 10 for all disabled people and 8 in 10 for non-disabled people. Part of the gap is the recruitment process itself: the review found autistic people have far more negative experiences of interviews, group tasks and psychometric tests, that vague and jargon-heavy job descriptions are a barrier on their own, and that AI screening tools which analyse eye contact and mannerisms penalise neurodivergent candidates outright.
None of that is an argument for a separate process. It is an argument for a better one, because every change below makes the process fairer and more accurate for everybody. Anthony Butler and neurodiversity advocate Colin Minto talked through what that looks like in practice in a fifteen-minute video on levelling the playing field for neurodivergent candidates.
Why the standard process gets it wrong
A conventional recruitment process tests a set of things the job rarely needs: reading between the lines of an advert, performing well in an unstructured conversation with strangers, thinking of examples on the spot, holding eye contact, and picking up on social cues from a panel. Candidates who are strong at those things do well regardless of whether they can do the work. Candidates who are not, including many neurodivergent people, do badly regardless of whether they can. The process is measuring the wrong thing, and it is measuring it inconsistently.
Write the advert for someone who reads it literally
Say exactly what the job is and exactly what you need. List the actual tasks. Separate the skills you require from the skills you would like, and drop anything you would not in practice reject someone for lacking. Cut the personality adjectives (dynamic, confident, excellent communicator) unless the job needs them, because a candidate who takes the words at face value will rule themselves out. Describe the working pattern, the environment and the team plainly. Put the adjustments you offer in the advert itself, not in a policy three clicks away. Short sentences, plain headings, no jargon. Every reader benefits, which is the point.
Offer adjustments to everyone, before anyone asks
Most people who would benefit from an adjustment will not ask for one, because asking means disclosing, and disclosing at application stage feels like a risk. So offer the useful ones as standard. Send the interview questions in advance, to every candidate. Tell people what will happen, who will be there and how long it will take. Allow extra time on any test or task. Offer a written or one-to-one alternative to a group exercise. Give the choice of a quiet room or a video call. Name a person candidates can ask about the process. Then, on the application form, ask in plain words whether there is anything else that would help, without asking for a diagnosis.
Some neurodivergent conditions may count as disabilities under the Equality Act 2010, which carries a duty to make reasonable adjustments. What that requires in a particular case is a question for your HR or legal adviser. A process that offers the adjustments above to everyone rarely finds itself in difficulty.
Assess the work, not the interview
The most accurate assessment of whether someone can do a job is watching them do a piece of it. A short work-sample task, set the same way for every candidate, scored against written criteria by two people, tells you more than an hour of conversation and tests far less of the social performance that has nothing to do with the role. Where an interview is still needed, structure it: the same questions for everyone, sent ahead, with follow-ups on the detail rather than new surprises. If you are hiring for potential rather than experience, how to hire for potential covers the assessment. And if you use any automated screening, find out what it is measuring. A tool that scores facial expression or eye contact is scoring something the job does not need and the law may not like.
Train the people doing the interviewing
Hiring managers are the process. A manager who reads a lack of eye contact as a lack of interest, a direct answer as rudeness or a pause as uncertainty will mark down candidates who would have been excellent hires. Short, practical training on what neurodivergence looks like in an interview, what the adjustments are for and how to score evidence rather than impressions is the single highest-return change most businesses can make.
Onboarding and the working pattern
The adjustments do not stop at offer. A clear written plan for the first weeks, a named point of contact, explicit expectations rather than assumed ones, and a check-in about what is working all help. Flexibility in hours and location helps many neurodivergent people more than most, and your own workforce may already be telling you so: in our survey of 116 UK insurers, fixed hours were associated with lower wellbeing across the board, and the findings are in what 116 insurers told us about flexible working.
Measure it
Track where candidates drop out of the process and whether the pattern changes after you make adjustments. Ask every candidate, hired or not, how the process was for them. Count how many people take up the adjustments you offer. If nobody does, the offer is not visible enough. How to measure inclusion across the whole process is in building an inclusive workplace begins with your hiring.
Where Vermelo comes in
We have worked with RPO clients on exactly this: rewriting adverts and job descriptions in plain terms, building adjustments into the process as standard, training hiring managers on what to look for and what to ignore, and setting up the measures to see whether it is working. Some of that work is in our case studies. If you want a process that assesses the job rather than the interview, that is what our embedded talent teams run, and a process review through talent advisory is the place to start if you want to see where your current one loses people.
Neurodiversity Celebration Week runs every March, and the Neurodiversity Celebration Week resource hub is a good place for employers to go further. Talk to us if you would like help with yours.
Sources: ACAS, Bosses urged to do more to support neurodiverse staff, 6 March 2025; The Buckland Review of Autism Employment, gov.uk, 28 February 2024.
Neuroinclusive recruitment, answered
Yes, to every candidate, not only those who ask. Sending the questions a day or two ahead removes the memory-and-improvisation test that a standard interview smuggles in, which is a test most jobs never set. Neurodivergent candidates benefit most, because the Buckland Review found autistic people have far more negative experiences of interviews, group tasks and psychometric tests than other applicants, but everyone gives better evidence when they have had time to think. If you are worried about rehearsed answers, ask follow-up questions on the detail; a rehearsed answer falls apart on the second question and a real one does not. Sending the questions to everyone also means nobody has to disclose anything to get them.
Offer them to everyone at the start, rather than waiting for a request that many people will not make. The useful ones cost little: the interview questions in advance; a clear description of what will happen, who will be there and how long it will take; extra time on any test or task; the option of a written or one-to-one format instead of a group exercise; a quiet room or a video call; and a named person to ask about the process. Ask on the application form what would help, in plain words, without asking for a diagnosis. Some neurodivergent conditions may count as disabilities under the Equality Act 2010, which carries a duty to make reasonable adjustments; what that requires in a given case is a question for your HR or legal adviser, but a process that offers the adjustments above to everyone rarely finds itself in difficulty.
Say exactly what the job is and exactly what you need. The Buckland Review found that vague, generic job descriptions with overlapping and ambiguous statements are a barrier in themselves. So: list the actual tasks, separate the skills you require from the ones you would like, drop anything you would not actually reject someone for lacking, and cut the personality adjectives (dynamic, confident, excellent communicator) unless the job really needs them, because candidates who take words literally will rule themselves out. Describe the working pattern and the environment plainly. Put the adjustments you offer in the advert, not in a policy three clicks away. Short sentences, plain headings, no jargon. The result is a better advert for every reader, which is the point.