State pension age: What is the retirement age in the UK?

Here’s what you need to know about the current retirement age of 66 and future changes, so you can know when you’ll be allowed to retire.

What is the legal retirement age and why is it increasing?

For decades, the age at which you could claim your state pension was 65 for men and 60 for women.

But the huge increase in life expectancy has driven up costs for the Treasury, which is paying some retirees more years in retirement than they spent as workers.

Certainly, forecasts of life expectancy gains are lower of late, but only after rising for many years and likely distorted by the pandemic.

As it stands, the statutory retirement age for men and women is 66, and between 2026 and 2028 it will increase again to 67. (In 2028, the minimum retirement age for accessing work and other private retirement savings will also increase, from 55 to 57.)

However, the date of the next increase in the retirement age to 68 remains up in the air.

Officially, this is expected to happen between 2044 and 2046, which would affect people born in April 1977 or later.

But a previous government review already recommended the change be brought forward to 2037-2039.

There were rumors that he was considering accelerating the age increase until 2035, which now strikes people aged around 43 to 54 – triggering warnings that sick and poor people as well as caregivers would be the first victims.

However, the government has now postponed its decision on raising the retirement age to 68 until after the next general election, likely out of fear of a backlash from voters.

But the reason given is the current level of uncertainty regarding data on life expectancy, labor markets and public finances.

Another review will now be carried out, probably in 2026. This means that if the government gives 10 years’ notice before any increase, a rise to 68 could still happen in 2036.

Former Pensions Minister Steve Webb, which is now a partner of the LCP, adds that there could be a blow as the most recent review argued that there should be a cap of 6 percent of GDP on the total level of government spending. state pension.

“If this rule were applied, the legal retirement age would increase from 68 to 69 years between 2046 and 2048,” he warns. “Anyone born after 1979 would therefore have a retirement age of at least 69. As the population ages, this new rule would mean even greater increases in the state retirement age or a reduction in the value of state pensions.

“This would be a drastic policy change that would likely force today’s young workers to reach retirement age at 70 or older.”

The exact date you receive your state pension will depend on the year you were born. You can resolve this problem by using the state pension calculator.

Why is there controversy around raising the retirement age for women?

Many women born in the 1950s faced financial hardship by waiting longer than expected to collect the state pension.

A version of the plan to equalize the retirement age between men and women was presented in 1995, when the Conservative government of the day declared its intention to gradually raise the retirement age for women until at 65 years old between 2010 and 2020.

This was followed in 2007 by a Labor announcement that both men and women would see their pension age increase to 66 between 2024 and 2026.

But in 2011, Chancellor George Osborne brought forward the timetable for the two changes to 2018 and 2020 respectively, hitting women particularly hard because their increases happened both earlier than expected and in rapid succession.

Initially, the overhaul included an additional waiting cap of up to two years to obtain a state pension, but protests led to the cap being reduced to 18 months.

Some 2.6 million women were given five years’ notice before delaying their retirement age.

The Women Against State Pension Inequality or WASPI campaign says it agrees with equalizing the pension age for women and men, but not about the “unfair” way the changes have been implemented. He is fighting to obtain measures aimed at cushioning the financial shock.

A separate group, BackTo60, took legal action, but it was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in September 2020.

The parliamentary ombudsman has since accused the government of “maladministration” due to delays in informing women about the changes.

It is now a matter of examining the “impact of injustice”. After this stage of the Ombudsman’s investigation, he should make recommendations to remedy what happened.

However, it remains unclear whether the government will have to offer some form of compensation to the women, many of whom are struggling financially because they were unaware of the time frame before which they could receive a state pension.

Who can receive a state pension?

Not everyone is entitled to the full state pension, which is a regular payment from the government until you die. Eligibility depends on meeting certain criteria.

As well as being of the required age, you must have contributed to national insurance during your working life, or have contributed to voluntary national insurance, or received government credits for years spent in care or to other problems.

Until April 2016, workers needed to have 30 years of National Insurance contributions to get the full basic state pension, but everyone retiring since then needs 35 years of contributions to get the new flat-rate state pension.

However, even if you have contributed in full for 35 years, if you have forgone paying additional state pension rights – S2P and Serps – for a few years on top of that, this could still reduce what you get.

How much is the state pension?

The full flat rate state pension is £203.85 per week, or £10,600 per year. This amount will rise to £221.20, or around £11,500 a year in April.

People who retired before April 2016 on a full basic state pension receive £156.20 a week, or £8,120 a year. This is expected to rise to £169.50 per week, or around £8,800.

The old basic rate is supplemented by additional state pension rights – S2P and Serps – if they were acquired during working years.

People who opted out of S2P and Serps to pay less national insurance over the years and retire after April 2016 could receive less than the new full state pension.

The state pension increases each year according to the triple lock, that is, the higher of income growth, the inflation rate or 2.5 percent.

However, the government removed the remuneration element of the 2022-23 increase as wage growth was temporarily distorted to over 8 per cent due to the pandemic.

He avoided a furious backlash from pensioners by confirming the 10.1 per cent increase in state pensions, based on the soaring inflation rate, from April 2023.

The triple lock means older people will benefit from an 8.5 per cent increase in the state pension from April 2024, the Chancellor confirmed in the autumn statement.

This will be based on whichever profit growth element was higher this time around.

How to improve your public pension?

Everyone has the option to defer their state pension to get more in their later years, and to fill gaps in their NI record or buy top-ups.

If you delayed your retirement in the past, the rules were more generous, but if you’ve reached state pension age since 2016, you still have the option to increase your state pension for the rest of your life.

If you defer your pension for at least nine weeks, your state pension will increase for each week you defer, by the equivalent of 1 per cent every nine weeks or 5.8 per cent every 52 weeks.

Additionally, you can stop claiming the state pension after having done so for a period of time, and therefore benefit from an increase at the rates above, but only once.

If you continue to work after the state pension age, you do not have to continue paying National Insurance contributions.

Low-income pensioners may be eligible for pension credit. This tops up weekly income up to a minimum of £201.05 for singles and £306.85 for couples.