I’ve written a few times now about retirement and the financial prep that goes with it. There are plenty of moving parts, but income, age, and your employer are three big ones.

You need to have enough spare income to put into a pension.

Starting too young with high contributions might not be smart.

Your employer might be chipping in, or might not be.

Then there’s the state pension. A lot of people rely on it being there. It’s not enough to live on by itself, but it’s still money in. For years we’ve been hearing the age could rise or it might even be taken away altogether. That threat is starting to look a bit more real.

State pension age moving to 74

In a couple of years, the state pension age moves from 66 to 67. But a recent review of the numbers suggests that unless the system is overhauled, we’ll need to work until 74 before qualifying for it.

Why? Because of cost. People are living longer, more people are getting the pension, and more are expected to. It all adds up. In the UK we’ve got something called the triple lock, which means the state pension increases every year by the higher of inflation, wage growth, or 2.5%.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies reckons that unless we start increasing taxes to cover it, the only other option is to delay state pension age to 74 by 2068.

Sounds far off, and it is, but it means anyone born today might need to work until 74 to get a pension — unless they’ve built up enough in a private one to go earlier.

Labour seems more interested in pushing private pensions than fighting to keep the state pension age low. That might not be a bad thing, but it’s a shift in mindset for many.

For most people today, the worst case is retiring at 67. The review to raise it to 68 isn’t due until the 2040s — but let’s be honest, that could change.

Here’s where things currently stand:

As you can see, a lot can shift, and Labour’s clearly leaning toward boosting private provision — employers and employees both paying more in, as early as possible.

At some point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the state pension becomes means-tested or just gets taken away from those who’ve built up enough elsewhere.

Qualifying for the state pension

To get the full amount, you need more than just age on your side.

If you’ve got less than 10 years of full National Insurance contributions, you don’t qualify at all.

With 10 or more, you’ll get something, but it’s based on how many years you’ve contributed.

To get the full £11,973 a year, you need 35 full years of contributions.

If you’re not sure how many you’ve got, you can sign up with HMRC and check. If you’ve worked most of your life, chances are you’ve racked up a decent chunk already.

The struggle is real

I see a lot of noise around pensions lately, and rightly so. For a lot of people, putting money into a pension just isn’t possible. If you’re just getting by, paying bills and surviving, saving for retirement isn’t exactly top of the list.

If your job’s patchy, self-employed, or your employer doesn’t offer anything decent, then putting £100 a month away for some vague future payout feels pointless.

It’s easy to say “start early,” but life rarely makes it that simple.

If you do have a private pension

For those of us lucky enough to have a private pension with employer contributions, there’s hope — but even then it’s tight.

Take me, for example. My employer’s brilliant — they put 17% of my salary into the pension scheme. I chip in 3%, they match another 3%, and I top it up a bit more. I’m 53 now, aiming to get out at 60 if I can. I’ve also got a couple of older pensions from past jobs.

But even with all that, I look at the numbers and think — it’s still not enough for a “comfortable” retirement. I’ll need the state pension, no question. I’ve got 35 years of contributions, and that extra £12k or whatever it’ll be when I’m 67 will absolutely be needed.

It’s not that I haven’t paid in, I have — just not enough, for long enough. Most of my proper saving has come in the last decade or so.

It’s a bit of a joke, really. The UK minimum wage is over £25,000 a year, but the full state pension is barely £13,000 — and that’s for 35 years of paying in.

Summary

Unless you’ve been a high earner most of your life and had an employer who helped out, retirement in the UK is going to be a slog. For most people, the reality is working well into their 70s just to survive.

Is that dramatic? Maybe. But not wrong.

The cost of living is high, pensions aren’t performing miracles, and to retire with even the minimum wage, you’ll need a pension pot of around £700,000.

That’s the new reality. Prepare if you can — and if you can’t, well… best get comfortable working a bit longer than you hoped.