Research and analysis

Summary: Planning and Preparing for Later Life 2024

Published 21 July 2025

Mainstage report authors: Sarah Butt, Bethany Chapman, Olivia Cottis Black, Amy Dyer and Sinead Palmer at the National Centre for Social Research.

Willingness to Pay report authors: Sarah Butt, Gianfranco Addario and Joseph Crowley at the National Centre for Social Research and Edward McPherson and Rob Fontana-Reval at WPI Economics.

Overview

Planning and Preparing for Later Life (PPLL) is a nationally representative survey of adults aged 40 to 75 in Great Britain commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions. The 2024 survey, which collected data from 4,036 online, is the second in the survey series. The new survey provides updated evidence on how people prepare for retirement, useful to inform future policy developments and reflect on the impact of changes to economic circumstances and pensions policy since the first wave of data collection in 2020 to 2021.

The PPLL survey had four main objectives:

• To understand attitudes and behaviours around pension saving and planning for later life
• To provide evidence to support policy development around income adequacy in retirement
• To gather evidence on attitudes and knowledge around the State Pension system
• To gather evidence on the value consumers place on Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) products, policies and services – published in a separate report on ‘Willingness to Pay’.

Research Context

The PPLL 2024 survey was commissioned by the DWP to provide up to date information on people’s attitudes and behaviours around planning for retirement. The survey is the second in the series, following on from the first PPLL, conducted in 2020 to 2021 and published in 2022.

In recent years, and since the first PPLL was conducted, the pensions landscape, as well as the wider socio-economic context, has changed. Cost-of-living pressures and the impact of COVID-19 is undoubtedly still felt by some. The ageing population has necessitated a review of State Pension age, and the new State Pension was introduced in 2016 to simplify the system. Increased life expectancy also necessitates that people continue working for longer. The private pensions landscape has also seen considerable changes in recent years, including the introduction of Automatic Enrolment and Pension Freedoms and a general move away from Defined Benefit to Defined Contribution schemes. Responding to a new requirement to support pensions decision-making, the government has introduced policies to help people make informed choices and is also seeking to address specific issues such as the proliferation of small pension pots. PPLL 2024 provides evidence on how older adults are experiencing these changes and how they’ve impacted their attitudes towards and are planning for work and retirement in later life.

Key Findings

The later life landscape:

• 60% of people aged 40 to 75 in paid work said they wanted to work less as they approached retirement. When asked what would help them keep working longer, 46% of people who had not yet retired from paid work mentioned working fewer hours or being able to take more holidays
• 75% of people aged 40 to 75 had a private pension. People on lower incomes, renters and with a long-term limiting health condition were less likely to have a private pension. 54% of people without a pension mentioned not being able to afford it as a reason for not having a pension
• 38% of 40 to 75 year olds had no savings, while a further two in ten (20%) had savings of under £15,000. 78% of social renters and 66% of private renters reported having no savings, compared with 17% of people who owned their home outright.

Expectations for retirement:

• Around two-thirds (65%) of people below State Pension age said the amount of State Pension they receive would be very important or important in their decision on when to retire
• The median ideal retirement age for 40 to 75 year olds who had not yet retired was 60. Their median expected retirement age was 66
• 44% of people expected to retire before their State Pension age. Working beyond State Pension age was more common among the self-employed, people without a Private Pension, people on low incomes and renters.

Planning for retirement:

• People were most likely to say they started saving for their retirement in their 20s or 30s with 59% having done so. People started actively planning for their retirement at a later age. 45% of people who were semi-retired and 40% of people who were fully retired started planning in their 50s, with only 22% of semi-retired people (21% fully retired) starting earlier
• How confident people felt making decisions about pensions varied. The mean confidence score on a 0 to 10 scale was 5.1. Nearly half (46%) of 40 to 75 year olds rated their confidence between 6 and 10 on the scale but 13% rated their confidence as 0. People with high financial literacy, who had used regulated advice or guidance in the last 12 months and with a private pension felt more confident making decisions about pensions
• 24% of private pension holders aged 40 to 75 said they found it fairly or very difficult to keep track of their pension. The government is developing a pensions dashboard to help people keep track of their pension(s). Most people aged 40 to 75 said they would be very (50%) or fairly likely (31%) to use a pensions dashboard.

Income adequacy in retirement:

• People aged 40 to 75 were less confident that they would be able to achieve the lifestyle they wanted in retirement in 2024 compared with 2020 to 2021. When asked to rate their confidence on a scale from 0 to 10 the mean confidence score in 2024 was 4.7, compared with 5.8 in 2020 to 2021
• 41% of people aged 40 to 75 said they ’had no idea’ how much income they would need in retirement. This figure was higher among younger age groups and the less financially secure, that is those on lower incomes and renters compared with owner occupiers
• People varied in how reliant they expected to be on their partner’s income in retirement. On average, women rated their level of reliance on a partner (5.3 on a 0 – 10 scale) higher than men did (3.0 on a 0 – 10 scale).

Pension decision making:

• 53% of people aged 40 to 75 wanted their pension to provide them with a guaranteed income for life. This compares with 31% who wanted a flexible income and 12% who wanted a flexible income up to a certain age and then a guaranteed income thereafter. Younger age groups and people with smaller pension savings were the most likely to want a guaranteed income for life
• The majority (77%) of DC pension holders yet to access their pension did not have a clear plan for how to do this. This includes 56% who knew they had to make a choice but did not have a clear plan, and 21% who were not aware they had to make a choice. Only 22% had a clear plan
• People aged 55 and over who had accessed their DC pension since 2015 were generally confident that they had made the right choice to meet their retirement goals. Asked to rate their confidence on a scale from 0 to 10, the mean score was 7.3.

Willingness to Pay:

• The survey included a new module to understand the value people place on – or the average ‘willingness to pay’ for - products and services to aid retirement planning and decision-making
• The survey gathered insights on a range of guidance and information services such as simple annual benefit statements, which 92% of 40 to 75 year olds thought should continue to be provided. The mean amount that the respondents would be willing to pay annually for a simple annual benefit statement was £6.60
• The survey also asked respondents about their willingness to pay for new default policies the government are currently developing. For example, 73% of 40 to 75 year olds (74% of private pension holders) thought that automatic consolidation of small pension pots should be offered. The mean amount that people said they would be willing to pay, each time pots were consolidated, was £8.80.

Methodology

PPLL collected data from a nationally representative sample of 4,036 adults aged 40 to 75 in Great Britain. Data were collected via a 45 minute online self-completion survey (with the option to complete via the telephone on request) between 30 October and 7 December 2024. The survey was carried out by the National Centre for Social Research.

The sample for the survey was drawn from respondents to the 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024 Family Resources Surveys aged 40 to 75 who had agreed to be contacted for further research. The data have been weighted to ensure that findings can be generalised to the population of 40 to 75 year olds in Great Britain. The final data have been calibrated against Office for National Statistics (ONS) mid-year population estimates to ensure that they closely resembled the target population in terms of sex, age and region.