Before the invention of the telescope, humans had identified around 6,000 stars. Then along came Galileo and all of a sudden tens of thousands of previously unseen stars became visible. Fast forward 400 years and the current generation of space telescopes like Gaia have uncovered something close to 2 billion stars.
And they had always (well, I say ‘always’ in the cosmological sense) been there – they didn’t just suddenly appear into existence because people had become more and more aware of what stars were.
So why am I telling you this?
Well for one it gives me an excuse to spend ‘working time’ looking at the NASA website and calling it research – and also because of the analogy I use when I talk about why so many adults are getting diagnosed with ADHD. We’ve always been ADHD, but it’s only recently thanks to the increased visibility, awareness and recognition of ADHD that so many of us are seeking a formal diagnosis later in life.
And a few days ago the UK Government published the interim report from its independent review into Mental Health Conditions, ADHD and Autism – which confirms that while epidemiological prevalence, or the proportion of the population living with a specific condition is ‘broadly stable’, demand for diagnosis is skyrocketing. Another key finding is that women and girls – a historically under-diagnosed group – are seeking diagnosis in increasing numbers.
Clearly, visibility matters. Awareness matters. Recognition matters.
As the report itself states: “Diagnosis has become the gateway to support in education, higher education, and employment — creating institutional demand for diagnosis beyond clinical need alone.”
That ‘demand’ is going to draw a lot of focus. No doubt cries of a ‘crisis’ will jeer at us from the front pages of grubby tabloids. Talk of a system under pressure – unable to cope with the demand. Perhaps. But don’t let it pull focus away from the real opportunity here – that for the first time, the data is living up to the reality. And an entire generation of adults and young adults stand to benefit, if we get things right.
My diagnosis gave me permission to start advocating for my own needs: to stop masking, to really understand what I needed before charging into every situation like a demented bull in a situational china shop.
Imagine the next generation being able to really understand themselves in a way that benefits not only themselves, but everyone and everything they go on to influence.
The Why: what’s happening in your ADHD brain
The workplace, in its standard form, was not built for ADHD brains. The open-plan office. The nine-to-five. The emphasis on consistency, routine, and sustained attention to tasks that offer little immediate reward. These are structural features that happen to be exactly the conditions under which ADHD performance struggles most.
Here’s why:
The ADHD brain has a dopamine regulation problem. Not a motivation problem: a neurological one. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter most associated with motivation, reward, and the sense that effort is connected to outcome. In ADHD brains, this system is dysregulated. The result is that tasks which don’t carry immediate interest, urgency, or novelty fail to generate the dopamine signal that would normally drive sustained effort. This is why “just focus” and “just try harder” are pieces of advice that miss the point entirely. The effort and the reward aren’t connecting the way they do in a neurotypical brain.
Add to that executive dysfunction: the set of skills that helps a person plan, initiate, switch between tasks, manage time, and handle competing priorities. These are the skills the standard workplace runs on, and they’re the ones ADHD most directly impairs. Not because ADHD people can’t do these things, but because doing them requires significantly more cognitive effort. The tax is invisible, but it accumulates.
Then there’s masking: the largely unconscious process of adapting your behaviour to appear neurotypical. Many adults who get diagnosed in their 30s, 40s or later have spent decades becoming very good at this. And masking carries a cost. It is cognitively and emotionally exhausting. It conceals the support you actually need. And it makes it almost impossible to know where your natural strengths end and your compensatory strategies begin.
Diagnosis doesn’t remove any of this. But it does something essential: it gives you an explanation. And with an explanation comes the ability to stop working against yourself.
If You Have ADHD, Here’s What You Can Do About It
1. Get the diagnosis. If you’re reading this and wondering whether you might have ADHD, the first step is getting assessed. NHS waiting lists are long, but the Right to Choose pathway means you can request an assessment through an NHS-funded specialist provider rather than waiting for your local service. Private assessment is also an option. The ADHD UK website has current guidance on both routes.
2. Know your legal rights. ADHD is a protected condition under the Equality Act 2010. Your employer has a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments. A formal diagnosis strengthens your position considerably, though the law is clear that you don’t need one to request support. An Employment Appeal Tribunal ruling in 2025 confirmed this protection applies to workers with ADHD across all sectors.
3. Look into Access to Work. This is a government-funded scheme that most people with ADHD have never heard of. It can provide up to £66,000 in support for workplace adjustments, including ADHD coaching, assistive technology, and mental health support at work. You apply directly to the Department for Work and Pensions. It is under-claimed and genuinely useful.
4. Start the conversation. You don’t need to disclose everything to everyone. But telling someone at work — a line manager, an HR contact, a trusted colleague — changes the dynamic. It creates accountability, opens the door to adjustments, and removes the energy cost of masking indefinitely. Frame it around what you need, not what’s wrong with you.
5. Bridge the gap between diagnosis and daily function. A diagnosis tells you what the condition is. It doesn’t automatically tell you how it shows up in your specific role, under your specific pressures, in the environments you actually work in. Coaching that understands ADHD helps you translate insight into practical strategy: for focus, prioritisation, emotional regulation, and navigating workplaces that were never designed with you in mind.
If you have an ADHD diagnosis and want to work with a coach who gets it, has done the hard yards and knows how to coach you to be the best version of yourself possible – drop me an email or visit WhereFocusGoes.com/coaching to find out more.