Master's applications - do transcripts matter less if you graduated 5-10 years ago?

I graduated with my bachelors (Biomedical Science) in 2018 and spent several years working in a hospital lab and the COVID testing labs being both a medical lab assistant and associate practitioner in the NHS.
I just graduated from my Masters this year (2023-2024 academic year) after attempting to go for promotions at work and kept being turned down, in favour of people with Masters, despite knowing I could do the job I was after…
The university I obtained my masters in (graduated this Tuesday but received my classification 3 weeks ago) was the same one I obtained my Bachelors from. So I am fairly sure my job had a heavy impact on my ability to apply for my masters and get accepted.
The reason why was I admit I didn’t do overly well in my bachelors, achieving a 2.2 (I was chasing a guy on my course and not putting as much focus on my work as I should have been admittedly) but I graduated with a merit this year, which I’m happy to say I worked very hard for and didn’t make my previous mistake!
So yes, I would say if you’ve got some significant work experience behind you (3+ years I would say is more than enough), that will heavily impact your application!

This is the kind of thing determined on a course-by-course basis.
Short answer, yes, some courses might still take into account your spread of marks. But it's the kind of thing you can reach out to them to check They should be honest about their selection process for graduates with more work exp.
If you were chiefly getting 2:1's with some stronger results, I doubt it will be a problem as postgrad is typically less competitive overall than undergrad purely because of application numbers.

Good to know! Do you mind me asking what type of uni it was - e.g. Russell Group or not Russell Group? You don't have to explicitly say the exact uni if you don't want to.

My situation is that I got a First overall, but it's heavily weighted on the fact I did really good in some modules (e.g. 80+) and not so good in a few others (2.2s in around 4 of them). I think in all honesty, most of my modules marks were more around 2.1s. But I do have pretty solid experience for the last 4 years which is directly related to my undergrad across most of the modules I studied.

Thanks for your thoughts! Yes, it doesn't seem it's all that clear for graduates with work experience, especially if directly related to the sector. With grade inflation now, I would wonder if someone graduating 5-10 years ago could get away with slightly lower marks.

You wouldn't happen to have any insights for Economics, Finance, or similar sort of subjects, would you?

Some business schools still review your academics against the same criteria. IE if you had weak or wobbly marks that might still be of concern. But equally at others some relevant work exp might mitigate this. If you meet the academic requirements we are only talking about how strongly you are considered though, not being rejected solely off the back of some 2:1 grades.
Again, it's all very course-by-course so difficult to give definitive answers.