Retirement Planning
- We provide tailored pension planning advice to help you secure a comfortable retirement.
- Our team evaluates your current pension arrangements and offers strategies to maximise your savings potential.
- We guide you through pension consolidation and investment options, ensuring your retirement plan is on track.
Get in touch for a no-obligation chat about how we might be able to help you.
Retirement Planning
Guy Layman talks to us about retirement planning. Episode recorded in February 2025.
What is the current retirement age? What age can you take your pension?
The current state pension age is 66, and that’s the same for men and women these days.
It will move to 67 from next year, 2026.
The age you can take your pension is often determined by the pension scheme you’re in.
Ages 66 and 67 only relate to the state pension. Some schemes will let you withdraw your pension as early as 55 and, under some circumstances such as ill health, you can access it even earlier than that.
Why do I need to plan for retirement?
It’s about financial security. For a lot of us, the state pension perhaps may not be enough for us to enjoy the lifestyle we might hope for in retirement. Planning ahead could bring you financial freedom to afford the lifestyle you wish for.
The cost of living is going up and there are obviously inflationary pressures at the moment.
Pension planning, subject to your investment style and strategy, is probably a good way of keeping pace with that, to make sure that your retirement income is enough.
Of course, other factors are at play. We’re all expected to live longer than before, and we may have healthcare needs later in life. So planning ahead gives you financial security, and may reduce money worries once you’re retired or not working quite as hard. I think that’s what everyone’s after.
How do I plan for retirement? What is the process?
Certainly for us as a business, when we talk about pensions with clients we start at the end, which sounds strange. But we really want to understand what ability people have to save for retirement. We look at the disposable income they have to contribute towards their retirement planning, as well as something that is difficult for a lot of people – trying to understand what their income needs might be in retirement.
Some recent statistics suggested that we might want as much as 60% to 70% of our pre-retirement income to retire on. That’s a pretty big proportion, if we assume by that stage most people expect not to have mortgages and children who cost them a lot of money.
That seems quite a high percentage to me. But understanding what one’s need in retirement might be would be a good start.
We also look at one’s current provision. That could be a state pension, and a workplace scheme that should be considered.
People’s position around debt is also key. A generic bedrock of financial planning is to make sure you have an emergency fund, then pay off any debt and then start investing. At what stage does the debt come into play?
The most important thing is to review your planning and adjust as necessary. As we go through our working lives, our circumstances and needs will change. That’s why it’s good to keep it under constant review.
Speak To an Expert
How can I boost my pension pot?
The first thing is to start early. Most of us in the working world will benefit from auto-enrollment pension schemes from our employer. Because of that, more people have pension plans than perhaps in the past. That’s been a good initiative.
The sooner one starts, the better. Various sources suggest that the contribution level should be half one’s age as a percentage. If you’re 20 years old and start contributing, that’s 10%. If you wait till you’re 30 to start, that’s 15%. So the earlier you start the better.
It’s worth checking with your workplace scheme what their contribution levels are. Auto-enrollment rules mean the employer has to contribute and often they will actually match any increase you make to your contribution. That’s obviously great if you can manage to put more away.
Understanding risk is also important. Pensions, like other investments, are invested in the markets. The fund itself will take some risk with the assets. It’s the risk-reward relationship that drives some of the growth within the fund. More risk typically means more reward – and a risk category that’s too low may not drive the return you’re after.
The final thing could be to consider other savings methods. What other investments or savings could you use? For example, an ISA perhaps might grow over time and be available in retirement.
There are lots of different strategies people could use to boost retirement planning. Some are simple and straightforward, while others may be a little bit more detailed.
How can a financial advisor help here? Is there anything else you’d like to add?
An advisor has all the tools available to forecast and profile your future. If a new client comes to me in their 20s or 30s, and I ask how much they think they’ll need in 40 years time, that’s a difficult thing to put a number on. But some of the tools available to us as advisors are very helpful in exploring that.
The second benefit is our knowledge and understanding of the market – and the tax intricacies and benefits of how pensions can be used. It’s always helpful to engage a professional who understands those elements.
The final thing is review and change. If you work with an advisor and build an ongoing relationship, that advisor would be able to assess and understand your changing needs
and recommend accordingly.
The value of pensions & investments and any income from them can fall as well as rise. You may not get back the amount originally invested.
