Your retirement number: understanding safe withdrawal rates
Use future spending and other income to estimate a retirement portfolio target, then understand why the withdrawal rate is only a starting assumption.
Education · Retirement
Retirement planning guides
Connect future spending, workplace and personal pensions, the State Pension and withdrawal assumptions to a retirement plan you can examine and update.
Where to start
Turn retirement into a plan
A retirement target depends on the spending to be funded, the reliable income expected and the uncertainty carried by investments. Start by mapping each source of income, then test the size and flexibility of the portfolio needed to fill the gap.
- 01
Map pension income
Bring workplace, personal and State pensions into one view, including timing and access rules.
- 02
Estimate the spending gap
Separate retirement spending from the reliable income expected to meet it.
- 03
Test the portfolio
Compare withdrawal assumptions, horizons and market scenarios rather than treating one target as certain.
Guides
Explore retirement
Connect future spending, pensions and withdrawal assumptions to a practical target.
How UK pensions work: workplace, personal and State pensions
See how employer contributions, personal pensions, tax relief and the State Pension can form different parts of retirement income.
Put the ideas to work
Related financial tools
Interactive tool
Financial Future Explorer
Model income, spending, pensions, property and life events together.
Explore ↗︎Interactive toolInvestment Growth
Explore how contributions, returns, fees and inflation affect a future pot.
Explore ↗︎Interactive toolAssumptions Lab
Test the assumptions behind a long-term projection.
Explore ↗︎Official data, made visual