Age doesn’t equal competence.
It doesn’t erase it either.

I am 15. That fact tells you something important about the legal protections I should have. It does not tell you whether I can design a product, repair a production fault, understand a balance sheet or take responsibility for a decision.

I founded Ident.ink and work across its software, product and infrastructure. None of that makes me automatically competent at everything. It does mean my competence can be tested using the same things we should use for anybody else: work, evidence, judgement, honesty about limits and what happens after something goes wrong.

Age is relevant. It is not a complete assessment. An adult can be inexperienced, reckless or completely unprepared. A young person can be highly capable in a narrow field while still needing protection, advice and adult support elsewhere. Both statements can be true at the same time.

Protection should reduce exploitation and irreversible harm. It should not turn a birthday into a substitute for evidence.

The current line is clear. Reality is not.

UK company law draws a bright line. Section 157 of the Companies Act 2006 says a person cannot be appointed as a company director before turning 16. The same Act already gives the Secretary of State a power in section 158 to create exceptions, with conditions, for somebody under 16.

The official Companies House incorporation guidance also says only people aged 16 and over can legally enter into a contract for that process, and that an incorporation application will usually be rejected if a subscriber is 15 or younger.

There is a reason for caution. Directors have real statutory duties. Contracts can create debt and lasting obligations. A system that simply pretended every child had adult legal capacity would make exploitation easier, not entrepreneurship fairer.

But the choice should not be “full adult exposure” or “you cannot meaningfully participate”. That is a false choice. Law is capable of conditional permission, supervision, value limits, independent review and recorded consent. It already uses those ideas in plenty of other areas.

Competence is specific

We often talk about competence as if it were a personality trait: somebody either has it or does not. In practice it is specific to a task and a moment. I might be able to review a deployment safely and still need an accountant to review tax treatment. An experienced adult director might understand finance and need an engineer to explain an infrastructure risk.

A better system would ask better questions. Does this young person understand the decision? Can they explain the risk in their own words? Is there evidence of relevant work? Is an independent adult checking conflicts and coercion? Is the commitment capped and reversible? Is there a clear route to challenge a refusal?

Those questions protect people. “Come back when the calendar changes” often does not.

Age discrimination has an awkward gap

The gap is not only company directorship. Part 3 of the Equality Act deals with services and public functions, but section 28 says that Part does not apply to the protected characteristic of age for people under 18. That does not make every refusal lawful under every other rule, and it does not remove duties connected to disability, sex, race or other protected characteristics. It does show how easily an under-18 customer can fall outside the ordinary age-discrimination framework for services.

That matters when the service is not alcohol, gambling or another product that obviously requires an age restriction. Business banking, payment processing, professional tools and company services are the practical infrastructure of modern work. A blanket “18+” policy can leave a capable young founder dependent on informal workarounds, even when a transparent supervised route would manage the risk better.

What I would change

1. Create a supervised young-founder status.A court, registrar or approved professional should be able to recognise limited business capacity for a specific venture. The status should require informed consent, an independent safeguarding check and an adult co-signatory for defined high-risk decisions.
2. Use limits, not a fake version of adulthood.Routine contracts could have capped values and short terms. Borrowing, guarantees, property, employment decisions and other serious commitments should keep stronger approval requirements.
3. Make providers explain refusals.Banks, payment firms and business platforms should publish whether a restriction comes from law, safeguarding, underwriting or internal policy. Where no statute requires a blanket ban, there should be a human review route.
4. Let evidence count.A portfolio of shipped work, accounts, training, references, risk explanations and operating history should be relevant. Evidence should never remove safeguarding, but it should be able to move a decision beyond an age-only assumption.
5. Protect the young person from the adults.Any supervised route must check that a parent, investor or partner is not using the young person as a front, taking their intellectual property unfairly or pressuring them into obligations they do not understand.

What I am not arguing

I am not arguing that every age restriction is wrong. I am not asking for young people to access age-restricted products, escape safeguarding rules or sign unlimited personal guarantees. I am not claiming that writing software proves somebody can run every part of a company.

I am arguing for proportionality. Keep the hard barriers where the activity is inherently unsuitable or the harm cannot be controlled. Everywhere else, build a route that tests understanding, limits exposure and recognises evidence.

Young founders should be allowed to be both capable and young. We should be able to say “this person has proved they can do this” without pretending they no longer deserve the protections attached to their age.

Age does not equal competence. It does not remove competence either. The law should be mature enough to understand the difference.