Which? pensions podcast - every episode in one place

Retiree 1: I’m pretty sure most of us have days where we can just please ourselves, which is a nice sort of circle, come circle from the hectic days of work. I take our two dogs for a walk in the morning, DIY, and because we’re now closer to my son, I am going over to help him.

Retiree 2: You can take the pace out of things. I think to myself, how on earth did I get the washing and any shopping done? You’ve got the space to do those things. So I’m not necessarily doing lots of stuff that’s different; what I’m doing is a better pace, more spread out, at times that suit me better.

Retiree 3: My cat’s usually hassling for his breakfast. He pokes me in the eye with his paw saying, "It’s my breakfast time, are you going to get up?" I get up to go and make my tea and give him his breakfast and then I go back to bed for a while. Eventually, I might get up when I feel it. I’m never in any great hurry.

Jenny Ross: No matter how far away you are from retiring, you’ve probably given some thought to how you’ll spend your time when you get there. A cruise round the Med, tending to your allotment, or just spending more time with the grandkids — we’ve all got an idea of what a world after work looks like.

But thinking about how you’ll afford that dream retirement lifestyle isn’t quite as much fun. I asked a few of my own colleagues here at Which? for their thoughts on saving for retirement.

Colleague 1: I feel retirement is very far away and I don’t really need to think about it yet. I feel because I’ve got a pension in my current job, that’s kind of all I need to do at the moment.

Colleague 2: I feel a bit daunted because I feel it’s an expertise that I’m not entirely au fait with.

Colleague 3: I know it’s ticking in the background and for me, I know I need to log in and just check if it’s all right.

Colleague 4: It feels a lot to do and a very important outcome. Obviously, it has a very significant long – term importance, but as it stands, it’s not the most important thing I’ve got going on at the moment in my life.

Jenny Ross: That’s why we’ve created this four – part podcast series to help you feel more confident about your future finances. I’m Jenny Ross, editor of Which? Money. Welcome to this podcast from Which?.

Jenny Ross: Let’s start by going back to basics. The word pension comes from the Latin word pensio, meaning payment. Even if you didn’t know that, you’ll know that pensions are a way to save for retirement. But do you know what sets it apart from other types of savings or investment accounts?

Colleague 3: An ordinary savings account is probably something that you might need to access within the next year or so, or the next couple of years maybe, whereas a pensions account is a much more long – term savings and investment account.

Colleague 4: I would say that a pension you can only take the money out once you retire, whereas a normal savings account, depending on what it is, you could take it out any time.

Colleague 5: A pension is very much reserved for future use, while a savings or investment account gives you more freedom in most cases to take the money out and add money when you want.

Jenny Ross: You’ll probably have a savings account or two and use it to pay for emergencies, holidays, maybe even for Christmas presents. Perhaps you have an investment portfolio, too, for your longer – term savings goals. But pensions work a little differently, and what sets them apart is something called tax relief.

Dale Critchley: Nothing beats a workplace pension when it comes to efficiency in saving for your retirement.

Jenny Ross: Dale Critchley is the policy manager at Aviva.

Dale Critchley: First of all, you’ve got your employer pension contribution. Quite commonly, the more you pay in, the more your employer will pay in, but everyone gets an employer pension contribution. And secondly, the government also pay in through tax relief. That means for every 80 pence that you contribute, 100 pence is actually invested in your pension scheme.

Jenny Ross: And because pension tax relief is linked to the rate of income tax you pay, if you pay more than the basic rate of income tax, you’ll benefit from a higher level of tax relief. So, if you pay the higher rate of 40%, making a £60 pension contribution would actually boost your pot by £100, as you’d be entitled to £40 in tax relief from the government.

If you’re employed, the good news is that you’ll be automatically signed up to your workplace pension scheme when you start a new job, as long as you’re 22 or over and earn more than £10,000 per year. If you’re under 22 but earn at least £6,240, you can still choose to enrol; it just won’t happen automatically.

Workplace pensions are usually what’s known as defined contribution schemes, where you contribute a portion of your salary each month. As we heard from Dale at Aviva, the even better news is that your employer will make a contribution too. But many of us aren’t sure how much we’re contributing.

Colleague 1: I think I’m contributing about 3% of my salary, which seems like enough because my employer puts in a bit more.

Colleague 5: I do know how much I contribute. It’s not something I know off the top of my head, but it’s something I can very easily look up.

Colleague 3: I think 3%. That’s something I’ve only become more conscious of in the last couple of years and there was a really long period of time where I just had no clue basically.

Jenny Ross: Under the rules of automatic enrolment, pension contributions are set at a minimum of 8% of your earnings. Usually, this applies to earnings between £6,240 and £50,270. This is known as your qualifying earnings. The 8% is made up of 5% from you, including tax relief, and 3% from your employer.

So, let’s say your salary is £30,000. First, you’ll need to deduct the lower earnings threshold of £6,240 to work out your qualifying earnings — in other words, the part of your pay that’ll be used to calculate pension contributions. In this scenario, this is £23,760. Then we need to calculate 8% of £23,760 to work out the total amount that’ll be going into your pension. This works out at £158.40 a month, which breaks down as £99 from you, including tax relief, and £59.40 from your employer.

I didn’t work that out in my head, by the way. I had a calculator to hand. For an easier way of checking exactly how much is going into your pension each month, you can just check your payslip or ask your employer directly.

If you’re self – employed, saving for retirement is more of a challenge as you won’t benefit from employer contributions. Yes, you’ll still get tax relief on the money you pay into a pension, but you’ll have to set up the pension yourself rather than being automatically enrolled in a workplace scheme.

Whether you’re employed or self – employed, you can’t access the money in your pension until you’re at least 55, going up to 57 from 2028. But this money doesn’t just sit in an account doing nothing until you take it; it gets put to work. Here’s Dale Critchley again.

Dale Critchley: Those pension savings are invested in funds. These might be set up by the scheme, known as default funds, or you can choose your own. The funds are made up of different kinds of investments designed to grow your pension over time, and they grow tax free. The final size of your pension pot depends on how much you pay in and how well your investments perform. Ultimately, that will shape your lifestyle in retirement.

Jenny Ross: So, the combined power of tax relief and investment growth mean that over time, your pension pot should be worth considerably more than you and your employer have paid into it.

I say pension pot, but you might have more than just one. If you’ve changed jobs a fair bit throughout your career, you could actually have a lot more than one, because when you move to a new employer, your pension won’t automatically follow you. This can create a real admin headache. According to Pensions UK, more than three million pension pots are considered lost, with each one worth an average of almost £9,500. You could own one of them and could end up missing out on a valuable boost to your retirement fund.

So, what can you do to keep tabs on old pensions? It’s nice and easy to get going and you can do it right now. Start by making a list of all your previous employers and check if you have the details of the pension scheme you had with each one. If you’re not able to find contact details for a previous employer or pension provider, you can use the government’s free pension tracing service to confirm them.

Once you’ve tracked down all your pension pots, it’s time to think about whether or not to bring them all together in one place. Tom Selby is the director of public policy at AJ Bell.

Tom Selby: It can be a really attractive thing for people to combine their pensions. For some people, it won’t be possible — so if you’ve got certain types of defined benefit pensions, then you’re not allowed to transfer those. So those are unfunded defined benefit pensions. But if we’re looking just at defined contribution schemes — so where you build up a pot of money that’s going to be used for your income in retirement — combining them can be a really useful thing to do.

For most people, the key reason for combining is simplicity. So, you don’t have five, six, seven different bank accounts dotted around all over the place because that would be quite difficult to track and difficult to monitor. People tend to have one, maybe two bank accounts. A similar principle applies to your pension — why would you have all your pensions dotted around all over the place? Very hard to know what’s in them, very hard to generate an income in retirement from those.

Simplicity is the main reason that people will do it, but there’s other potential benefits as well. So, you can benefit from more choice in terms of the kind of income you can take. You can benefit from lower charges if you pick the right pension scheme. More flexibility, more choice. So, lots of potential benefits, but if you’re going to combine your pensions, then you need to be aware of some of the risks as well.

So, if you’ve got an older – style policy, then some of those will have quite valuable guarantees attached — so things called guaranteed annuity rates. If you transfer the money, you’ll lose that guarantee. So, you need to be aware of that. Again, older – style policies — not modern ones, but if you took out a policy 20, 30, maybe even 40 years ago — there may be exit charges applied to that as well, which will mean that the value of the transfer would be less than you might otherwise think it would be.

And then for the majority of transfers, you need to think about things like charges, investment performance, investment choice, all that kind of stuff. But if you’re comfortable with all of that, if you’re comfortable that you’re not giving up something really valuable and there’s something better for you somewhere else, then getting it all in one place — just as a human being — is just easier to have everything in one place so you can make sensible decisions about your retirement.

Jenny Ross: Getting your pensions organised is a big step in the right direction for your retirement planning. But how do you know if you’re saving enough? That’s the question we’ll be tackling in our next episode.

In the meantime, we have plenty more pensions advice and news on our website; just go to Which.co.uk/retirement. We also have a monthly retirement planning newsletter full of tips and analysis to help you take charge of your savings. Sign up at Which.co.uk/retirementnewsletter.

Jenny Ross: Do you know how much is in your pension?

Colleague 1: I think I may have got an email – an end of year statement kind of thing – and just thought yeah I’ll log in and have a little look at that. So sometimes it’s prompted by things like that.

Colleague 2: The last time I checked my pension I think was when I started this current job, which was about five months ago.

Colleague 3: I don't think I've actually signed in yet.

Jenny Ross: As our quick poll of Which? staff shows, if your answer is no, then you're not alone. That's why we've created this podcast series – to help you feel more confident about your future finances. I'm Jenny Ross, editor of Which? Money. Welcome to this podcast from Which?. Episode 2: Are you saving enough for retirement?

Recent research from pension company Standard Life found that almost half of UK adults don't know how much is in their pension. Even if you do know exactly how much you've saved so far, the bigger challenge is gauging how much you'll eventually need. Cali Sullivan is the project lead for retirement living standards at Pensions UK.

Cali Sullivan: The retirement living standards is a set of guidelines that were created by Pensions UK and Loughborough University to give people an idea of the costs at retirement – what people spend at different levels and whether they're in a couple or a single. The reason we created the retirement living standards was because we found that a lot of people didn't really know how much they needed at retirement. So we wanted to make sure there was something available for people to have a look at.

Back in 2017, we took part in a consultation to find out what other people thought of that as well. So we created the six different categories within the retirement living standards to give people an idea of spending levels. Those spending levels that came out of it were minimum, moderate, and comfortable. Within each of those, we also have a one-person category and a two-person category.

The minimum one-person spending habits we found was about £13,400, and if you're in a two-person household, it was £21,600. For the moderate level, we have £31,700 and at the moderate for two people, we found they were spending around £43,900. Then the comfortable was £43,900 for one person and £60,600 for two people at comfortable.

Jenny Ross: You might be wondering what exactly is the difference between the three retirement living standards. According to Pensions UK, minimum covers all your needs with some left over for fun. The moderate standard gives you more financial security and flexibility, and the comfortable standard gives you more financial freedom and some luxuries. You can see the full breakdown of the expenses covered by each standard on the Pensions UK website.

It's also worth bearing in mind that Pensions UK's figures assume that you'll no longer be paying rent or a mortgage, as that's the case for most people in retirement. But if you're likely to still face housing costs, you'll need to factor these in on top.

The figures for each of the three living standards might sound a bit daunting. So let's break it down. How much do you need in your pot to reach these annual targets? Again, it's not an easy question to answer. It depends on how you decide to access your pension. We'll be looking at your options in more detail in a later episode. But let's say you choose to leave your pot invested and take income as you need it. This is known as pension drawdown.

To achieve the comfortable retirement living standard of £43,900 a year as someone living alone, we've calculated that you'd need around £600,000 saved. This assumes that you start taking your money at the age of 65 and live for another 20 years. We've also assumed that as well as money from your private pension, you're getting the full level of state pension, which is worth just over £12,500 as of April 2026.

If you have a partner, Pensions UK says you'll need £60,600 in total each year for a comfortable retirement. That means you'd need around £680,000 in your combined pots if you opt for drawdown. The important thing to remember is that there is no magic number that we should all be aiming for. You'll need to think about your own retirement goals and what it might cost to achieve them. Here's Cali Sullivan again.

Cali Sullivan: The retirement living standards are guidelines – they’re not set in stone. You might find that somebody spends more on a holiday than they do a car. You have to look at their guidelines, so you look at them and think, "Well, I don't spend that there, but I do spend a bit more here." It's a bit of a weighted counter, but these give people a bit of a practical view of what spending does look like at retirement and gives people an idea of what can they achieve and what do they need to look towards.

Jenny Ross: Let's look at how you'll build up your savings. If you have a workplace pension, minimum contributions are set at 8%. This is usually based on what's known as your qualifying earnings. That's earnings between £6,240 and £50,270. The 8% is made up of 5% from you, including tax relief, and then 3% from your employer. But there's no guarantee this will be enough for the retirement you want. So if you can afford to pay an extra, it's well worth doing so.

Even if you can't commit to increasing your regular contributions, think about making extra one-off contributions from time to time – for example, if you get a bonus. The good news is that even small increases can make a big difference over time. Mike Ambery is the retirement savings director at Standard Life.

Mike Ambery: In terms of example, a worked one would be we had a saver contributing the minimum at 8% from 22 might reach a pot of around £210,000 adjusted for inflation. Increasing to 10% could grow that £210,000 to £262,000. So a 2% increase is over £50,000 – £52,000. That's a difference in lifestyle at the point of retirement. Let's go another 2% and go to 12%. That could lead to £315,000. Just over £100,000 more would be that 4% increase, which would be a substantial difference.

Jenny Ross: To run your own numbers and work out how much your pot could be worth at retirement, you can use our calculator at which.co.uk/pensioncalculator Starting to save for retirement as early as possible in your career will give you the best chance of building up a healthy retirement pot. But there's no need to panic if you're coming to it relatively late. Here's Mike again.

Mike Ambery: The headline for me would be it's never too late to make a savings. Don't think, "Oh, because I haven't done it, I haven't got the energy to be able to do it." It's never too late. You can start, you get good tax advantage, good relief, and it's never too late to start saving into a retirement pot. One other thing that friends and colleagues have also worked out would be if someone contributed the minimum up till age 40 – say the 8% to age 40 – and then you just ramp it up because you can and that you're fortunate enough to be able to do it and then increased it to 10% at that point. That would go up to £240,000. So even in a sort of mid-phase of career, just bumping it a little bit adds tens of thousands of pounds because of compounding interest.

Jenny Ross: The question of whether people are saving enough for later life is at the heart of a government's new pension review. This is still in early stages but will be examining the pension system as a whole, including the state pension, before making recommendations for change. Some groups face an even greater challenge when it comes to saving for retirement. These include self-employed workers, who are less likely to have pension savings compared with employees.

And the gender gap persists. Analysis from the Department for Work and Pensions shows that women aged 55 to 59 have an average of £81,000 in private pension savings compared with £156,000 for men. That's a difference of 48%. It's clear that change is needed to help improve people's chances of a comfortable retirement. I spoke to some of my colleagues about this along with some people who have already retired.

Colleague 1: I would have probably benefited from some hand-holding whereas I've actually ended up trying to frantically save quite late on in my career, I guess.

Retiree 1: Every job that I had, I would investigate the pension provision to the nth degree. I didn't do it – I was frivolous, I made mistakes, I hold my hand up – but at this stage of my life now, I can't do anything about it.

Colleague 2: For me, the dawn of YouTube and podcasts have just made such a difference because it's been able to – it's given me access to experts from all around the world that I wouldn't have ever had access to before. Back in the day, we just gave money to the employer and sat back and did nothing.

Jenny Ross: As I mentioned earlier, you won't have to rely entirely on your own savings in retirement, as the state pension will also be a key source of income. But how exactly does it work? And how could it change in the future? We'll be looking at that in our next episode.

In the meantime, we have plenty more pensions advice and news on our website. Just go to which.co.uk/retirement We also have a monthly retirement planning newsletter full of tips and analysis to help you take charge of your savings. Sign up at which.co.uk/retirementnewsletter

Retiree 1: Both myself and my husband, we have banked on state pension at 67. I got a lump sum with some of my pension so that is also supplementing what I have now. That will only last so long. So, yes the state pension important and has been a significant part of our planning.

Retiree 2: My main source is my state pension, my NHS pension is very minimal, but it covers some of the bills. But I’ve also got some investments and I seem to be doing okay with that and I’ve won a few premium bonds as well.

Retiree 3: State pension and one tiny, tiny, little, very annoying private pension which I can’t cash in and I get the equivalent of two coffees a month.

Retiree 4: I’m in a better position than a lot. So the state pension – yes, it’s nice to have, but if it didn’t increase, I wouldn’t be looking too badly at that.

Jenny Ross: It might not be marked on your calendar, but this year is the 80th anniversary of the National Insurance Act 1946, the legislation that paved the way for the modern state pension. It’s gone through plenty of changes since then, but the principle is the same: that most people will get a regular payment from the government to help fund their retirement once they reach a certain age.

The state pension is different to a workplace pension, something we’ve covered off already in this podcast series. Under current rules, you won’t get the state pension until you’re 66 years old, but it’s about to go up to 67, and further rises could soon be announced. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of debate around how much the state pension should rise by each year.

So you might be wondering, what does all of this mean for me? That’s why we’ve created this podcast series to help you feel more confident about your future finances. I’m Jenny Ross, editor of Which? Money. Welcome to this podcast from Which?. Episode three: What does the future hold for the state pension?

The age at which you qualify for the state pension isn’t fixed. It’s 66 for now, but there will be a phased increase to 67 between April 2026 and April 2028. For example, if you were born in May 1960, you’ll qualify in June 2026, a month after your 66th birthday. Then people born in June 1960 will qualify two months after their 66th birthday, and so on.

Another rise to 68 is timetabled to happen between 2044 and 2046. The government is required by law to review the state pension age every six years. Its latest review is underway and will be taking into account life expectancy as well as the cost of providing the state pension. This amount has grown significantly over time.

Here is Steve Webb, former pensions minister and now partner at consultancy firm LCP.

Steve Webb: In a way, the growth in the state pension cost is a good news story because by and large it reflects the fact that more of us are on average living for longer – and you have to be careful about averages – but if you go back to the start of the 20th century and think about people just reaching adulthood, over that century, the length of time you could expect to live had gone up well over a decade.

So actually when we reach pension age, we’re then drawing that pension for perhaps 25 years, 20 years, that kind of period of time, which our grandparents' generation just wouldn’t have understood. So that’s good news, but of course you’ve still got broadly speaking the same number of workers paying the national insurance in, but more people for longer in retirement.

What it does mean is if you combine more pensioners living for longer with the pension going up quite quickly, it starts to put quite a cost burden on the working-age population. Now, I should say many retired people would resent the use of the word burden; they would perfectly reasonably say I’ve spent 40, 50 years paying in, this is my right – so I use that word just in a pure economic sense that if there’s no money set aside and we’re spending more on the retired population, we’re asking more in tax and national insurance of the working-age population.

Jenny Ross: So how much is the state pension worth to you? If you’re reaching state pension age after April 2016, you’ll be covered by what’s known as the new state pension, as opposed to the basic state pension. As of April 2026, the new state pension is worth £241.30 a week at its full level. That’s just over £12,500 a year.

But these numbers might not bear any resemblance to what you actually get. That’s because payments are based on your national insurance record. To get the full new state pension, you need to have made 35 years of national insurance contributions. These are known as qualifying years. If you have fewer than 35 qualifying years, but at least 10, you’ll still get a state pension; it’ll just be adjusted to reflect the number of qualifying years you have.

There are various reasons you could have gaps in your national insurance record. For example, you might have taken time out of work to raise children or spent time living abroad. The good news is that you have the option to fill these gaps by making voluntary national insurance contributions. This could mean you end up with a higher state pension.

The cost of these contributions depends on the year you’re looking to fill in, but bear in mind you can only fill gaps in your record from the past six years. You can check if you have any missing or incomplete national insurance qualifying years, as well as how much they’ll cost to fill, at gov.uk.

Just one final note on this: before paying voluntary national insurance contributions, make sure you’re getting any national insurance credits you’re entitled to. These count towards your state pension entitlement in the same way as ordinary national insurance contributions but don’t cost you anything. Reasons you might be eligible include if you’re caring for a child as a parent or grandparent, claiming statutory sick pay, or looking after a sick or disabled person.

Thanks to the government’s triple lock promise, the amount of state pension you get will increase each year by either earnings growth, inflation, or 2.5%, whichever of those is highest. But this promise doesn’t come cheap. So while the government has committed to maintaining the triple lock for the duration of this parliament, its long-term future looks uncertain.

Here’s more from Steve Webb, who was in government when the triple lock was introduced in 2011.

Steve Webb: So I was pensions minister between 2010 and 2015 and when I became pensions minister in 2010, for the previous 30 years, the pension, the retirement pension, had just gone up in line with inflation each year. Now, you may say what’s wrong with that? It keeps pace with spending, with the cost of living. But the trouble is the job of a pension is more than that; a job of a pension is when you don’t have a wage anymore, you don’t want your living standard to fall off a cliff.

You want to maintain the standard of living you had when you were working or something like it. So if the wages are going up faster than prices, which is normally the case, then each year the state pension was falling compared with what people were earning – it’s a falling share of the average wage. And so it meant the cliff edge when you retired was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So the state pension was really not doing its job anymore.

So the idea of the triple lock which started in around 2011 was to say well, we’ll always meet prices; if the cost of living’s gone up, we’ll always cover that. We’ll always do as well as wages because actually we need to keep tabs with what people in work are getting. And then this third element, this 2.5% floor, said politically sometimes these numbers are just so low it’s almost insulting to pay.

To give you an example, around the year 2000 the pension went up by 75 pence because inflation was really, really low and there was a huge political fuss about that and the following year the government put it up by £5 because it was so embarrassed. So just the politics of tiny-weeny pension increases – those are the three elements.

And each of them, funnily enough, has applied in different years; so sometimes it’s inflation that’s the highest, sometimes it’s wages that’s the highest, sometimes 2.5%. But the point about that is relative to the average wage, the triple lock has improved the value of the state pension, which I think is a good thing, but there probably comes a point where you stop because otherwise the state pension just rises and rises and rises relative to the average wage and becomes completely unaffordable.

So at some point a politician will have to say it’s been great, but we’re switching it off and replace it with perhaps an earnings link of some sort.

Jenny Ross: And it’ll have to be a brave politician who makes that decision. Here’s Tom Selby; he’s the director of public policy at AJ Bell.

Tom Selby: What the triple lock has become is a kind of totem that allows politicians to say we’re doing right by older people. But the challenge of that is that actually over the last 15 years, there’ve been quite a lot of years when earnings and inflation have been low and so the state pension has gone up in real terms by quite a lot.

So the potential cost of that policy going into the future could be gargantuan and so at some point some politician is going to need to be brave enough to say this needs to end. Now, we saw with what happened with winter fuel payments what the public reaction is to politicians taking benefits away from people. Now, this wouldn’t be the politicians taking the benefit away from people, but that’s what it would feel like. So reducing the increases that you get in the state pension will lead to significant blowback for any politician.

Jenny Ross: Anthea is a Which? member who’s been retired for eight years and the state pension forms most of her income. She says she’d be disappointed if the government made any changes.

Anthea: Well, that’s a hugely controversial subject, isn’t it? I would be very upset. This government, if it does renege on the triple lock, then a lot of us will have less income.

Jenny Ross: Robert is a Which? member too. He retired as a wing commander in the RAF in 2025 and recognises that his workplace pension provides enough income for him to live comfortably. But he also knows that for many, the state pension is essential.

Robert: Because of all the people I’ve met through the food bank who are only on a state pension, and some of them because they hadn’t added the additional payments to make it a full pension, weren’t even on a full pension, they’re struggling. So my circumstances aren’t typical, but the state pension I think is important and the need for it to keep pace with inflation to provide security for the older people who have nothing else is really important.

Jenny Ross: When or whether any changes are made to the triple lock remains to be seen. What we do know is that the state pension age will change. But what about your workplace pension? When can you take that money? And how can you take it? This is what we’ll be discussing in the next episode.

In the meantime, we have plenty more pensions advice and news on our website, just go to which.co.uk/retirement. We also have a monthly retirement planning newsletter full of tips and analysis to help you take charge of your savings. Sign up at which.co.uk/retirementnewsletter.

Retiree 1: Taking that decision and then saying, "Okay, that's it." That was a bit a weight off, it was okay, I can put that to bed now. I can move on. I've got other things I want to do. I was so used to getting to work for 8:30 that I thought, "I don't have to get up. I can stay in bed a bit longer if I wish."

Retiree 2: It wasn't a cliff–top moment because in that interim of becoming part–time, I'd taken other things on.

Retiree 3: I didn't really overthink, "Oh, I'm in retirement." I just thought, "Okay, this is a new stage. This is quite exciting. What am I going to do?" So I found it quite energising.

Jenny Ross: Gone are the days of being presented with a carriage clock and a happy retirement card by your employer when you reach your 65th birthday. Most jobs no longer have a compulsory retirement age. So when you stop working is entirely up to you. This will usually come down to whether you can afford to.

The earliest you can access money saved in a private pension is 55, rising to 57 in 2028. But under current rules, you won't get the state pension until you turn 66. And don't forget your retirement could last several decades, so you'll need to be confident your savings will last. Latest figures show that on average, a 65–year–old man can expect to live to nearly 84, while for women it's 86.

It's not just when you retire that you'll have to think about. You'll also need to decide how to turn your savings into an income. So what are your options? I'm Jenny Ross, editor of Which? Money. Welcome to this podcast from Which? Episode 4: How and where should you take your pension?

Life expectancy is rising, and in turn, people are working for longer. In 2025, the average age of exit from the workforce reached a high of 65.8 for men and 64.7 for women. That's according to the Department for Work and Pensions.

Retiree 4: I was 67, so I'd already been receiving my state pension for a while. And the reason I retired at that point was it was looking like I was going to become a grandmother – and I am, in fact, I'll be a grandmother very soon. So I wanted free time to be able to spend time with my family.

Retiree 2: I was 58, and the last few years had been working part–time, working for myself, but also I'd got caring responsibilities as well. And actually I couldn't fit all that in. So it became a question of, "Right, I am able to retire." It was something I was fortunate enough to be able to do and decided actually not work on the head so that I could continue with caring responsibilities and also fit my other life in around it. So it was a case of, "Right, that's what I'm going to do." And it was the right thing.

Retiree 3: I must have been just coming up to 70. I retired because my boss, unfortunately, who was a very famous man, Stephen Hawking, he passed away in 2018. So I obviously lost my job and it was a very sad time. And then I thought to myself, "Well, I want to do something for me after working for what, 50 years, I think I was working." So I went to university and did a degree.

Jenny Ross: As well as deciding on the best time to retire, you'll also have to make a plan for how to access your pot. That's assuming you have a defined contribution pension, the most common type of workplace pension. You may have heard of a defined benefit or final salary pension. This was the most common type until the 1980s, and they were a lot more generous back then. The vast majority of people nowadays have a defined contribution pension, so we'll keep our focus on those. Here's Tom Selby, director of public policy at AJ Bell.

Tom Selby: There is no age at which you absolutely have to access your pension. One of the great things about reforms that were introduced in 2015 that gave people freedom and choice is that there's no set age, there's no set retirement age at which people have to do something with their pension. I think that's actually a common misconception that I come across is this idea of a retirement age. So people think of the state pension age as their retirement age and actually, you can access your pension to supplement income whenever you like and you can access your pension at any point early or later in retirement, post that age of 55, in order to get the income that you need. So the great thing about those reforms is that they give you flexibility about how to access your own money, but you do need to consider how you're going to make that money last throughout your retirement.

Jenny Ross: Let's get into that important decision you'll have to make about how to access your pension. Research by the Financial Conduct Authority has found that three–quarters of people aged 45 and over don't have a clear plan for how to take money from their pension, or weren't even aware they had to make a choice.

Colleague 1: I sort of get it. I know that there's the new annuity route, there's the drawdown route, but I'm not really, if I'm entirely honest, I'm not really sure what I should do or which one I should go for and why. So I'm sort of leaving it till later to make those decisions.

Colleague 2: Yes, so I'm going to be doing a drawdown so I'm going to keep my money in the market, though I do need to think about what I'm going to be invested in, whether I should be taking on small bonds and things like it. And then I'm looking at doing it just gradually over time rather than doing a 25% lump sum. I'd like to use that tax–free cash over a period of time.

Jenny Ross: So what do your options look like? Earlier, Tom mentioned the pension reforms that were introduced in 2015. This was a huge change to the way that we can access our pension pots. It gave us a lot more flexibility. Before then, most people used the money in their pension pot to buy an annuity, which pays a guaranteed income for the rest of your life. You can still use some or all of your pot to buy an annuity, but now you have several other options.

Pension drawdown is one of them. This is where you leave your pot invested and withdraw money as you need. There are pros and cons to both options. For example, drawdown gives you flexibility to vary your income and the opportunity to benefit from investment growth. But there's also the risk of your investments underperforming and of you running out of money.

On the other hand, annuities give you certainty about your future income, but no flexibility to vary it. And once you've bought an annuity, you can't reverse the decision. You don't have to choose one over the other, though. For example, you could use some of your pot to buy an annuity and leave the rest in drawdown.

Whether you're buying an annuity or going into drawdown, or both, you can take 25% of your pot as a tax–free lump sum. Just bear in mind that there's a cash limit to the amount of tax–free money you can take overall, but many people won't have to worry about this as it's set at £268,275 across all your pensions.

If you wanted to, you could now just take your whole pot as cash. The first 25% of your pension will be tax–free, but you'll then pay tax on the rest in the same way as other income. Alternatively, you could take out smaller lump sums as you need them. 25% of each withdrawal will be tax–free and the rest will be taxed. The very uncatchy official name for this option is uncrystallised funds pension lump sums. It just means that you haven't crystallised your pension pot by turning it into an income.

Clearly, there's a lot to weigh up. But many retirees aren't seeking financial advice to help with this big decision. Of all the pensions accessed in the last financial year, less than a third were taken after receiving regulated advice. The costs involved are a major barrier to accessing financial advice for most people, which has created what's been dubbed the advice gap. In other words, the number of people actually getting advice is far lower than the number of people who need it.

But financial advice – in other words, recommendations tailored to your individual circumstances and goals – isn't the only option if you're looking for help when deciding how to take your retirement savings. Pension Wise is a free, government–backed guidance service for over 50s. Here's Charlotte Jackson, head of guidance services at the Money and Pensions Service, which runs Pension Wise.

Charlotte Jackson: We see thousands and thousands of people every month who are looking at accessing their pension and who need a little bit of help and support understanding what that might mean for them. So in a Pension Wise appointment, people have the opportunity either to talk with somebody face–to–face if they need, but mainly by phone about what it is they're looking at doing. So at what point are they looking at retiring, how much money have they got saved up, and what types of products are available across the pension industry or insurance industry firms that they might want to consider.

So what Pension Wise isn't is it's not regulated financial guidance. So Pension Wise will never say to somebody, "You should buy this product" or "We recommend you do this." Pension Wise is provided by us because we are an arms–length body, so what we provide is free and independent and impartial. We'll listen and I think that's a really big word. We spend a lot of our time listening to people, listening to try and understand what their life is and what their aspirations are so that we can then talk them through how those products that they might be able to investigate further could best meet those aspirations.

If you've got a plan, brilliant, the more you can tell us, the more specific our guidance can be. And then a bit about what's important. So actually, is it really important that you know where you stand with your money? Do you want a regular amount each month that you know exactly where you're at with it? Or can you afford to maybe mix and match a little bit and maybe say, "Well, actually I don't really need that money for these months because I'm doing X, Y, and Z." Again, if you've got a plan, the more you can bring to that conversation, the more specific and bespoke our help can be.

Jenny Ross: It's clear there is a lot to consider when it comes to retirement planning. Are you paying enough into your pension? Do you know when you can access the money? And have you thought about how you'll do this? Have you paid enough National Insurance to be eligible for the full state pension? Hopefully, this podcast series has helped you answer these questions. Here are some final tips from the retirees we've spoken to throughout this series.

Retiree 1: Make sure you've got savings, just in case you find that you haven't got enough in your pension to live on. Make sure you've got some savings to back it up if needed.

Retiree 3: Everyone, if they are in paid employment or however they get their private pensions, please, please do think about your future. You don't want to end up like me with my state pension only. So please think about it.

Retiree 2: I think regular saving if you can from an early age is vital. It gives you that mattress to fall on if something goes wrong.

Retiree 4: If you're not in the habit of really looking at your finances closely, a good independent financial adviser will ask you those questions. And I think being acutely aware of where you spend money, where you don't, where you can save, builds a picture of actually what you realistically might need. And then actually you think about what your day's going to look like, how do you want it to be? And maybe starting to think about that quite early. The Pension Wise appointment that you get free from the government was excellent because whilst they don't give financial advice, they do give you lots of really useful information and that was really valuable actually. It was great.

Jenny Ross: Need any more advice? It doesn't end here. Just head to which.co.uk/retirement for plenty more information on how you can get on track for the retirement you want. We also have a monthly retirement planning newsletter full of tips and analysis to help you take charge of your savings. Sign up at which.co.uk/retirementnewsletter