Disability coaching: what it is and how it can help your career
Disability coaching is a confidential space to work through the extra layer disabled professionals carry at work — from disclosure to reasonable adjustments to progression.
Coaching is having a moment. Leadership coaching, career coaching, life coaching — it feels like everyone has a coach. So when I tell people I work as a disability coach, the most common question is a genuine one: 'What's different about disability coaching?' This is my answer.
What disability coaching is
Disability coaching is one-to-one, confidential coaching for people who live and work with a disability, long-term health condition, chronic illness or neurodivergence. It's the same core craft as any professional coaching — thinking partnership, powerful questions, action, accountability — but delivered by a coach who understands the extra layer disabled professionals are carrying.
That extra layer is real. It's the energy spent explaining your condition to a new manager. The mental load of tracking whether your adjustments actually got put in place. The internal debate about whether to disclose at interview. The pressure to over-perform to prove you're 'still capable'. The invisible tax of navigating a workplace not designed for you. Standard leadership coaching often doesn't touch it. Disability coaching centres it.
What disability coaching is NOT
- It's not therapy. Coaching looks forward, not back — although a good coach knows when to refer you to therapeutic support.
- It's not medical advice or occupational health. Your coach will not diagnose or prescribe.
- It's not advocacy. Your coach won't fight your battles for you — they'll help you build the clarity, confidence and language to fight them yourself.
- It's not pity or tea and sympathy. Expect to be challenged as well as supported.
What people bring to disability coaching
- Should I disclose my disability at work — and how?
- How do I ask for reasonable adjustments without feeling like a burden?
- I've been passed over for progression and I think my disability is a factor. What now?
- I've just been diagnosed and I don't know how (or whether) to tell my team.
- I'm burnt out from masking. How do I show up as myself at work?
- How do I navigate a return to work after a period of sickness?
- I want to move into leadership but I'm not sure the path is built for someone like me.
- I want to build a career I actually want — not one shaped around my condition.
How it works
Sessions are typically 60 to 90 minutes, held online, over a series of six to twelve sessions depending on the goals you set together. The first session is a chemistry conversation — no commitment — to make sure we're a fit. From there, you set the agenda; the coach brings the structure, the questions and the accountability.
Coaching can be paid for personally, through your employer's learning and development budget, or in some cases through Access to Work. Many organisations now fund disability coaching as part of their reasonable adjustments package — and it's worth asking.
Why me
I'm an ICF-credentialed Associate Certified Coach (ACC) and I've lived with an incurable, invisible, degenerative disability my whole life. I've navigated interviews, adjustments, disclosure, imposter syndrome, progression and leading a Disability ERG at a FTSE-100 employer. I coach because I know what it's like to have no one in the room who really gets it — and I know what changes when you do.
If any of the questions above sound like the one running in your head right now, book a free chemistry call. No pressure, no sales pitch — just a conversation about what you're navigating and whether coaching is the right next step.