Ask your recruiter if they can arrange another meeting with you to talk that issue through so you can put your side.

That really sucks Anna. 

I should note that I am an ethnic minority candidate and the other candidates they have recently hired for the role are all white females. The department is majority white with 1 mixed race employee.

Oh do jog on.

I think the time limit is 3 months for any discrimination claim so you are likely out of time. In any event, if it was a choice of an overqualified person or someone at the right level I would take the right level one as the other will moan about pay and potentially disrupt the team. 

code for they think you would be a handful to manage and you are too close to your immediate line manager in terms of skills and ability to show due deference etc. 

Thank you for the responses so far. I think it presumptuous to assume that one would moan about pay/disrupt the team. Many ethnic minorities have learnt not to speak up/rock the boat for precisely the reason of not being viewed as disruptive/troublemakers.

If you outperformed the competition (and have been told so), why not get offered the job? It's not unusual for immigrants, etc to retrain and thus be older. Companies make a show of diversity for PR, but continue with exclusion.

P.S. Warren - You jog on.

Hit them with an age and race claim and see how it rolls.

I wonder if it amounts to a hate crime. 

Sounds like you are the presumptuous one so perhaps take a leaf out of Michael Jackson's book rather than moaning like Gordon Ramsay turned down for a burger flipping job. Perhaps you lost out because they got tired of you using the word "presumptuous". 

How did you manage to do your ethnicity audit of the dept? 

Bananaman it's interesting that you refer to me enquiring about a particular matter as "moaning." Perhaps you'd prefer me and others to stay quiet and not seek advice? I appreciate you and others taking the time to reply to me. I will be sure to request a thesaurus for Christmas. Might make me less chippy/Gordon Ramsay like.

I should note that I am an ethnic minority candidate and the other candidates they have recently hired for the role are all white females.

How many of the recent hires have been white females and how does that compare with the demographics of the pool from which hires would be made?  This is a comparison of A and B and we don't really know either A or B, so impossible to take a view.  Affinity bias is real - and not necessarily irrational - but shouldn't have a place in hiring.

The department is majority white with 1 mixed race employee.

This is not clear. It could be 6 white people, 1 mixed race, 3 of other races, and that could reflect fairly accurately the demographic balance.

I know nothing about UK employment law, but I don't think that what you have said in your post is anything like enough of a basis for a discrimination claim to be successful. Even if it were, I'm doubtful that it would be worth litigating. Better to focus on finding a suitable role with people who want you.

It's difficult. Discrimination exists and happens. Consciously, semi-consciously, and unconsciously. The problem is that it's statistically possible to prove this, but very difficult to prove it in an individual case.

When companies do take the effort to give candidates reasons for not selecting them, they generally move into an it's-not-you-it's-us mode, wherein they don't really honestly tell the candidate why they have not been picked. "Too senior for the role" is always an easy way out, because you can turn people away with a compliment instead of having to point out what you think they were missing. 

Could be. Sorry to hear it. Us experienced Col aren’t always wanted. Think we are feared. Thinks about sister, nurse, with tons of experience who struggles to get offers. It’s baffling and discriminatory on age related grounds imo

Sue the ass off them.  There was a guy who made a living out of applying for jobs with two CV's where the only difference was the names and he was regularly going after people for accepting the white sounding name whilst rejecting the ethnic name.

Also there are lots of people in this world like me who are very experienced but quite happy as they are who don't particularly want to to move up the pole or get paid lots of more who will just turn up and do the job with no fuss.  I'd be fuming if I got rejected because apparently I'd get bored and leave as I dream of jobs that are generally boring.

I’m a white male and got turned down for a job. I was sure I could do it and noticed younger people of varying racial backgrounds were already working there. I wonder whether I was too white and too old for them. Should I bring a claim? 

The OP is clearly risky 

Tell them to just give you the job and you can act as dumb as the kids

the other candidates they have recently hired for the role are all white females. The department is majority white with 1 mixed race employee.

But do you know what they IDENTIFY as? 

Who has the biggest nob. 

What would you be trying to achieve?  Squeeze a few pounds out of them?  Seems unlikely to be worth the stress, and also unlikely you have any kind of a claim on what's been said above.  Better to move on.  

Also curious why you've waited a few months to raise this?

"I’m a white male and got turned down for a job. I was sure I could do it and noticed younger people of varying racial backgrounds were already working there. I wonder whether I was too white and too old for them. Should I bring a claim? "

I'm genuinely worried about this next time I look for a job....!!  Will have to play it fairly low risk from here I think...