The planner
Six questions, then your plan
Answer what you know, skip what you don't. Your plan comes back as a story.
Your figures never leave your browser. No login, nothing saved on our servers.Who's retiring?
How old are you?
Names just make your plan and reports read more nicely. Leave them blank if you'd rather not.
When should the income start?
Your age when withdrawals begin. If you're already drawing, use your current age. The month matters for tax: salary earned since April has already used that year's allowance.
What's in your pensions?
Defined-contribution pensions: workplace schemes, SIPPs, personal pensions. Not the State Pension; that comes further down.
What about savings and investments?
Put each pot in its own box so nothing is left in doubt. £0 is fine for any you don't have.
Tax-free
Investment ISAs.
Cash held in an ISA. Treated tax-free, like the S&S ISA, for now.
NS&I premium bonds. Prizes are tax-free, so grouped with your ISAs.
Taxable
Shares or funds held outside an ISA (a GIA). Growth is taxed when sold.
Savings and current accounts, NS&I, other cash.
How much income do you want each year?
The income the simulator aims to provide, before tax, in today's money: your household total, including the State Pension once it arrives. It rises with inflation each year, so its buying power holds.
That's the six questions
Enter a pension pot or some savings above and you can run your plan. Below are optional extras for when you're ready.
Worth thinking about
If you have a defined benefit pension, rental income, a lump sum to take, a big cost coming, or you want to protect against a crash, this is where those go. Each one is optional. Add the ones that sound like you, skip the rest and keep scrolling. Nothing is permanent: tick a box and the number moves, untick it and it moves back.
Protect it
The two defences against a bad run of markets.
What if markets crash just after I retire?
A bad first few years is the single biggest danger to a long retirement. The classic defence is holding a few years of spending in cash, so you never have to sell investments in a slump.
Could you tighten your belt after a bad market year?
Taking a little less income the year after a bad market year is one of the most effective ways to protect your pot. The plan can do this automatically, and the results say how often it was needed.
Keep more of it
Tax is the one cost in retirement you can actually plan away.
Could I pay less tax over my retirement?
Two quiet habits make a surprising difference over thirty years: never letting a withdrawal stray into the 40% band when it can wait, and steadily moving pension money into ISAs where it is never taxed again.
Will today's income still feel like enough in twenty years?
Tax thresholds are frozen until 2031 while prices rise, so an income that keeps pace with inflation quietly loses ground after tax. This option tops up withdrawals so your take-home keeps its full buying power.
Buy certainty
Trade some flexibility for income that arrives no matter what.
Want some income guaranteed for life, whatever markets do?
You can swap part of your pension for an annuity: a fixed income that arrives every month until you die, no matter what the stock market does. Many people buy one with half the pot at state pension age and draw the rest flexibly.
Want part of your income to come from dividends rather than selling investments?
Some retirees hold income-paying investment trusts and live off the dividends they pay out, without selling the underlying. A bad market year doesn't force you to sell cheap, though dividends are part of total return and can be cut, so the model trims them in a crash. Set the slice to 100% to live entirely off dividends.
Your situation
Things the model should know about you specifically.
Planning to take a tax-free lump sum at the start?
Up to 25% of each pension can be taken tax-free, capped at £268,275 over your lifetime. You do not have to take it all at once; in practice you can phase it. The model keeps it simple and takes whatever you enter here at the start of retirement.
Already taken tax-free cash from a pension?
Already taken your 25% tax-free cash, or part of it? The remaining pot follows different tax rules, and the model needs to know or it will hand you tax-free money you no longer have.
Do you have a defined benefit (DB) pension, or other income like rent?
Income from outside the pension changes the shape of the whole plan: less to withdraw each year, less tax, more left invested. Worth telling the model about.
Big costs or windfalls in certain years?
A few years of university fees, a roof, a property sale, an inheritance: amounts that land in particular years, not every year. Add a row per year, with its own amount, and the model folds each one in.
Will your spending change at set ages?
The mortgage ends. The big trips stop. Most people spend less in their eighties than their sixties. Set a permanent change from a given age and the plan carries it every year after that. The go-go, slow-go and no-go years, if you think of it that way.
Want a rainy-day pot the plan can never spend?
Some money is for emergencies, not for income. Set a floor and the plan will never spend your savings below it, taking from the pension instead, even when that costs more tax.
The last chapters
The things people plan around least, and should plan around most.
What if one of us needs care?
Residential care costs roughly £60,000 a year and nursing care more, usually late in life and usually for a few years. Most plans never look at it. See what it does to yours, and whether an insurance-style annuity would take the risk away.
Do you want to leave something behind?
Some people plan to spend the lot. Others want a sum left for the children, a house deposit, or simply a margin. Say how much and the results count the futures that leave at least that, beside the ones where the money lasts.
What we've assumed
Every default, on display. Change anything that doesn't match your situation.
The age defaults to your legal State Pension age for your birth year (66, 67, or 68). Type a different age to override it.
State pension options▸
The state pension rises every year between now and when you claim. 'Inflate each year' is the realistic choice. 'Keep at today's value' is more cautious.
Ticked: the State Pension rises each year by the highest of inflation, earnings growth or 2.5%. Because the earnings figure is fixed and usually above inflation, this builds real growth into the State Pension every year. Unticked (the default): it rises with inflation only, which is more cautious.
Use this if you want to see how the plan holds up with no state pension at all, for example if you have gaps in your National Insurance record.
Long-run UK average is about 2.5%. Your income target rises with this each year.
The total return you expect each year, after fees and charges: the plan deducts no fees itself, so enter what you expect to keep. Spending is inflated separately, so what really matters is this figure minus inflation. The ± figure is how much it swings year to year.
Simulation options▸
Fixed: the same return every year (smooth, optimistic). Random: returns scatter around the average each year (realistic). Variable: uses separate pre- and post-retirement rates (what this plan already does by default).
Replaces the first 10 years of every simulation with real UK market data from that period. Useful for seeing whether your plan survives a sequence-of-returns shock right after you stop work.
More futures gives smoother, more stable numbers. Fewer runs faster. 1,000 is a good balance for everyday use.
Plan long. Running out at 96 because you planned to 90 is the one mistake you can't fix.
The personal allowance and higher-rate threshold are frozen until April 2031. Current law then raises them with inflation each year. Keeping them frozen for the whole plan is a harsher test.
Scottish Income Tax has different bands from the rest of the UK. Switch this on if you pay tax in Scotland.
If you are not eligible for UK pension tax-free cash, for example if you live outside the UK permanently, tick this to remove it from the plan.
Edit the tax bands▸
Change this if the 2026/27 figure has been updated, or if you have a reduced allowance due to income over £100,000.
Income above this point (and above the personal allowance) is taxed at the basic rate. The 2026/27 figure is £50,270.
Income above this point is taxed at 40%. The 2026/27 figure is £125,140.
The maximum amount you can take as a tax-free lump sum across your lifetime. The 2026/27 figure is £268,275. Change only if future legislation alters this.
You'll get your plan back as a story, with the full year-by-year detail behind it. Nothing is uploaded; the maths runs in your browser.
Prefer every dial on one screen? The full calculator has the lot, and everything you've entered here carries over.