Rule changes may affect your anticipated pension planning / Increase in minimum access age from 55 to 57 from 2028
04 August 2025The late spring and early summer can be a great time to look at your financial planning, both in the short term, but also into the medium and longer term.
Some may be planning for the accumulation of wealth whilst still working in the lead up to a time when the spring and summer may be freer through full, or indeed partial, retirement. In our experience, many clients phase the end of their working career by reducing their hours/days of working before stopping fully.
The timing of any retirement is very personal, hopefully planned rather than enforced (as an example through redundancy); however, there are other parameters that may affect your planning, such as when the State Pension would become available to you, and for some, the minimum retirement age.
Currently, the minimum retirement age is 55, although this is increasing to age 57 from April 2028. Therefore, someone currently aged around 52 now who was planning to access pension benefits early may be caught by this current planned rule change.
Also, the age to be able to access the State Pension has increased to 67 and is moving up further as time goes on. We are advocates of individuals checking their State Pension forecast to make sure that they are up to the maximum benefit (accrued after 35 years of full National Insurance Contributions), and a check will also confirm the age at which you will be eligible to make your claim.
Of course, there are many factors that will affect the way that retirement benefits are generated, and the overall position is normally not created from one source, such as a pension. The options, or combination of options, also varies and more can be found on our Retirement Options Schedule here:
Planning your money and finances, including any spouse or partner, is always important, particularly if you are starting to think about the approach to retirement.
Giving yourself time is important and the team at Chapters Financial is ready to help, both in the accumulation phase, and also in perhaps the more enjoyable decumulation phase. We look forward to helping you when ready.
No individual advice is provided during this blog.
Keith Churchouse FPFS
Director
CFP Chartered FCSI
Chartered Financial Planner
Chapters Financial Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, number 402899
