RETIREMENT PLANNING
Retirement planning: What steps do you need to take?
Retirement and your pension – are you ready? It's never too early (or too late) to start planning your ideal retirement. We can provide the steps, tools and expert support to prepare for a brighter financial future.
Why Profile Pensions?
Retirement planning tools
Use our pension calculator or real-time drawdown rate tool to plan your retirement and see if your pension is on track to meet your needs.
A dedicated Pensions Adviser
You always have access to your own, dedicated pension expert, who can help you with any pension or retirement planning.
Stay invested
No hidden costs. Our annual fee is between 0.82%-0.86% (depending on the pension plan we choose for you). This includes platform, fund and ongoing service fees.
Retirement planning in 5 easy steps
Work out how much income you’ll need in retirement, this includes essentials like housing and bills, but also fun things to do like holidays, shopping and eating out.
How much income are you on track to have in retirement? Check your State Pension forecast on GOV.UK, combine your old pensions into one plan and use our pension calculator to work out the size of your pension pot and how much income you could have in retirement.
Look at when and how you can access your pension. You can start drawdown with defined contributions pensions from age 55 (rising to 57 in 2028) and the State Pension age is currently 67. When you can retire will depend on your pension pot, whether you are a couple or single and the income you need in retirement
Start your retirement plan! Based on all the things above, you should be able to work out if your pension is on track, if you can retire at the age you want or if you need to reassess your pension, contributions or retirement age to make it work.
Next steps: Once you have worked out your retirement plan (or if you’ve realised you need some extra help with retirement planning), our expert Pension Advisers can help you reach your goals and guide you towards a brighter financial future.
What income do I need in retirement?
The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) have released the Retirement Living Standards, showing how much income you’d need in retirement. This is split into 'minimum', 'moderate' and 'comfortable' lifestyles for single people or for couples.
There has been a 38% increase in the amount you’d need per year for a moderate income in retirement, vs the figure from last year (2022/23). This means we may all need to save more to make sure we have the lifestyle we want in the future.
These figures are a good place to start when you’re working out when you could afford to retire and how big your pension pot will need to be. You can then work out just how much you should be contributing to your pension each month. And remember, your dedicated Pension Adviser is always here to help you work out what you could have and how much you should be paying in now to make your retirement goals a reality.
What is retirement planning?
Have you ever wondered what retirement planning is about? Well, it’s planning for the future, making sure those later years are spent worry-free and you’re able to do all the things you love. It’s budgeting and planning now so that all your basic needs are met in the future, but that you hopefully can do all the nice, fun things as well.
First things first, retirement planning involves taking a look at your finances. That means looking at your pension savings, investments, and any other potential income streams, like State Pension or property investments. Next, it’s a good idea to set some goals about what you want in your retirement - are you happy retiring early with a moderate income or do you want a comfortable retirement? This could be things like new hobbies, travelling, or simply spending quality time with your loved ones. But it's not all about the fun things; we need to think practically too, about things like inflation, healthcare costs, and day-to-day bills. Once you work out what your retirement will hopefully look like, and you’ve worked out how much you’ll need to fund it, you should be set to handle whatever life throws your way.
Having a good plan in place now allows you to make the most of your hard-earned savings and investments, potentially even growing them over time. It will also give you the flexibility to retire when you want to and live life on your terms. So, whether retirement is getting closer and you’re planning pension drawdown or you’re just trying to get ahead of the game, there's no time like today to start planning for the future, and we’re always here to help.
What is a good pension pot?
It’s hard to put a figure on “what is a good pension pot?” as it varies from person to person, but using the recent data from the PLSA (see above) we know that to have a “comfortable” retirement you would need an income of £43,000 per year. And that means you’d need a pension pot of around £650,000 when you retire and to receive the full state pension.
But how do you build a £650k pension pot if you start at 25, 35, 45 or even 55? We’ve broken it down into these illustrations and included target pension contributions per month that you would need to make to reach the pension pot size you wanted for a comfortable retirement.
These figures are based on a female who starts investing in her pension at those ages. The pension pot size and annual income were found using our pension calculator and the £43,000 annual income is reached by including a full state pension.
You can see that the earlier you start, the better, as you will pay the least amount of money in per month for the same end result. This is because of compound interest and time invested. The later in life you start, the more you’ll have to pay per month. Someone who starts a pension at 25 vs someone who starts at 55 will contribute 54% less and could end up with the same size pension pot!
You can trust Profile Pensions with your retirement planning
At Profile Pensions, we believe everyone deserves a comfortable and fulfilling retirement, and we're here to help you achieve it. With us you’ll have:
A personalised pension plan and ongoing service to keep your pension in the right place for you, even when you’ve retired.
Find, check & transfer service to help you find and combine any old or lost pensions into one place, to make planning for retirement easier and to get a better picture of your total pension savings - there is a 1% one-off arrangement fee for this service.
You can see your estimated sustainable annual or monthly drawdown income in your account in real-time.
Your money will remain invested during your retirement to benefit from potential further growth
Your dedicated Pension Adviser will be available to talk to whenever you need to
Arrange withdrawals from your pension through your online account or over the phone with your adviser
Pension Calculator
Use our Pension Calculator to take away any guesswork when you’re asking yourself “Am I saving enough for retirement?” or “Can I retire at 60 with a £550,000 pension pot?”. We only need your gender, current age, the age you want to retire, your current pension pot value and the monthly contributions you make. Then we can estimate how much you could have at retirement and what income that could give you. This will give you a clear picture of whether you’re on track to meet your goals, or if you need to make some adjustments, like how much you contribute each month or the age you can retire.
This is a great place to start when planning your retirement, and your Pension Adviser can also help you with this or use the drawdown calculator in your online account.
Start your retirement planning today
Frequently asked questions about retirement planning
What is the 3% rule for retirement?
What are the steps in planning your retirement?
What is the golden rule of retirement planning?
What are the three biggest pitfalls to retirement planning?
Is it worth taking 25% of your pension tax-free at 55?
Can I withdraw 25% of my pension tax-free every year?
Can I retire at 55 with £300K?
Can I retire at 60 with £500K in the UK?
What is the largest expense for older adults?
What should you do before retiring?