the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement team
Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement team
Meet the team
Articles by the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement
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How futures thinking can support retirement decision-making
Planning for retirement and later life is becoming more complex. In the UK, rising living costs, changing career patterns, and longer working lives mean people are making more financial decisions under conditions of uncertainty.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreJune 16, 2026
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Balancing care, work and retirement in an ageing society
8 to 14 June 2026 marks Carers Week , which we are proud to support at the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreJune 08, 2026
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One More Year: are people ready for a State Pension age of 67?
How do people in their 60s feel about the rising State Pension age – and what does it mean for their finances, work, and retirement plans? We surveyed over 3,000 people and interviewed individuals directly impacted to find out.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreMarch 31, 2026
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Are Generation X in for a pension shock?
As a think tank focused on the future of retirement, we want to see more people have financial security and a decent standard of living in their later lives.
However, many people in Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980) are at risk of retiring with too little income and facing financial challenges in retirement. Many will have fallen between two pension systems, too late for widespread Defined Benefit (DB) and final salary schemes, but only having benefited from being automatically enrolled into Defined Contribution (DC) schemes for the latter part of their working lives.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreMarch 17, 2026
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Defying inertia: Employers’ role in boosting pension saving beyond the auto-enrolment default
Automatic enrolment (AE) has helped millions more savers into workplace pensions – but many are saving at the minimum rate, which we know may be insufficient for the retirement people want.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreFebruary 25, 2026
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Decisions in the dark: How the DC pioneer generation are navigating retirement income decisions
Retirement in the UK is changing. The shift from Defined Benefit (DB) to Defined Contribution (DC) pensions, combined with pension freedoms, longer working lives and a rising state pension age, means individuals now shoulder more responsibility and risk of securing a comfortable retirement than ever before.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreJanuary 28, 2026
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Jam tomorrow? Work, finances and retirement in an era of a rising State Pension age
As the State Pension age rises to 67, we think the government needs to put in place policies to ensure that as many people as possible have financial security throughout their 60s and beyond.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreDecember 03, 2025
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Retirement Voice 2025 | Standard Life
For the fifth year running, we’ve asked 6,000 people from across the UK to tell us about how they’re currently feeling about their finances, work, and how they are preparing for retirement.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreOctober 07, 2025
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Better help, better outcomes? Consumer perspectives on Targeted Support
As the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) consults on the potential shape and rules for firms to deliver Targeted Support, we have published detailed findings shaped by consumer perspectives on the new proposed from of support.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreJuly 09, 2025
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Counting on Experience: The demographics of the Industrial Strategy workforce
Over 50s have driven much of the employment growth over recent decades as more people work to older ages, and the age-profile of our workforce changes.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreJune 19, 2025
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Submission to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee Inquiry on Preparing for an Ageing Society
In March 2025, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee launched an inquiry called Preparing for an Ageing Society.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreApril 25, 2025
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Power of Attorney, why public engagement is so low and why that matters
Power of Attorney (POA) is a way for a person to give someone they trust legal authority to make financial, property, health and welfare related decisions on their behalf. They are arguably more important than wills, as they can affect your quality of life, from the ability to pay bills or decisions around healthcare, during your lifetime.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreMarch 11, 2025
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Work in Progress: Unlocking the value of adult careers guidance
At a time of rapid labour market and demographic change, ensuring adults have access to high quality careers guidance to support them into the right jobs is key.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreFebruary 27, 2025
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What role could Targeted Support play in supporting consumers at retirement?
Longer lives bring more choices and more opportunities, but also more decisions and more risks. When it comes to thinking about how and when to retire, people tend to be unaware of and unprepared for the decisions they’ll need to make and the potential consequences of making them.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreDecember 10, 2024
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Changing Journeys: How we save, work and retire
The way we work, save and retire has been changing, and will continue to change in the future.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreNovember 20, 2024
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Exploring what mid- to late-career workers think about 'green' jobs
Phoenix Insights have published their latest report ‘Resourcing the net zero transition: What do workers in their mid- and late-careers think of ‘green’ jobs?’ This report examines the perceptions of the existing workforce towards career switching into roles in a net zero economy
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreOctober 16, 2024
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Tomorrow’s problem? Analysing the future impact of DC pension undersaving
As the working-age population faces more responsibility for securing their financial future, evidence suggests that many are not saving enough to meet their retirement needs.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreOctober 03, 2024
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A roadmap to adequate retirement incomes for all
Achieving decent, financially secure retirements for people in the UK is an essential priority for individuals, government and industry alike.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreSeptember 12, 2024
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Could reducing the “age employment gap” achieve the government’s 80% employment aim?
The new government has set a target to achieve an 80% employment rate among 16-64 year olds
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreAugust 12, 2024
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Should the new government introduce an employment advice guarantee?
What could the government could do to consolidate public employment and careers services to open up access to all who may need it?
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreJuly 09, 2024
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Pre-retirement poverty: causes and solutions
This timely research looks at an important, but often overlooked, issue for millions of people in the UK – the increase in rates of poverty in the years leading immediately up to state pension age.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreApril 17, 2024
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“How much is enough?” A new retirement adequacy model
UK is under-saving – based on our previous research, 55% of defined contribution (DC) savers are either not on track or not expecting to meet the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Associations (PLSA) minimum retirement living standard. That begs the questions of both whether they could save more, and if the benchmark is a suitable target for them.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreMarch 11, 2024
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Developing and delivering Midlife MOTs
Midlife MOTs are a relatively new initiative aimed at providing information and opportunities to adults in their midlife and mid-career; to consider their skills, financial security, wellbeing and future retirement planning
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreSeptember 25, 2023
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Planning for retirement: the pensions knowledge gap and attitudes to working longer
The 2021 Census revealed that the proportion of people aged over 65 exceeded the proportion of children aged 15 or under for the first time (ONS, 2023).
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreSeptember 11, 2023
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Future of the state pension
Today, the state pension is at a critical juncture, facing questions over affordability and intergenerational fairness in the context of an ageing population and increasing longevity.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreJune 01, 2023
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Careers advice for longer lives
With people living longer lives than our parents’ and grandparents’ generations, many of us will want or need to work for longer. In a world of fast-moving economic, technological and ecological change, it is now widely accepted that for lots of us, the ability to change roles, reskill and switch sectors is becoming increasingly important.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreMay 01, 2023
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Pathways to retirement
We want to understand people’s expectations about how they will transition from work into retirement, to ensure that government and employers enable and support people to stay in work for as long as they want and in the way they want.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreMay 01, 2023
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Understanding the implications of the state pension age (SPA) review
Following the first independent review of the SPA by John Cridland in 2017, the government recently published the second independent review by Baroness Neville-Rolfe. Due to uncertainty in life expectancy data the government have decided not to accelerate the SPA increase at this stage. Instead there will be a further SPA review in the next parliament within two years.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreApril 01, 2023
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Beyond the great retirement: Understanding and tackling economic inactivity amongst the over 50s
Almost 1 million people aged 50-64 have left the workforce since the pandemic. Why the UK is seeing dramatic changes to workforce participation amongst over 50s is therefore a major concern.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreMarch 06, 2023
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Retirement preparations among different ethnic groups
To improve retirement prospects for the whole of society in the UK we need a better understanding of ethnic differences in future retirement outcomes and the drivers behind them, so that any appropriate interventions for the government and the industry can be identified and designed.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreFebruary 28, 2023
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Caught in a gap
The impact of women’s life events do not just affect their finances today, but can also affect their financial futures, as lower earnings result in lower pension contributions over time.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreDecember 01, 2022
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Why offering learning & development is not enough
Our previous research has shown that 18 million adults in the UK are not adequately preparing financially for later life, and 10 million are not confident in their ability to secure work, with many worried that a lack of skills will stop them from earning what they need to save for retirement.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreOctober 01, 2022
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Great Expectations
Many people working today face a huge challenge when it comes to planning and saving for their financial security in retirement. Using our Phoenix Insights Longer Lives Index data – a survey of 16,500 people aged 25 and over who aren't yet retired - we explore the adequacy and achievability of people’s retirement income expectations and look at how financial preparedness can be better achieved.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreSeptember 01, 2022
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Reaching a certain age: Public attitudes to the state pension
The state pension matters to a lot of people. 12.5m (and rising) adults in the UK receive it. We spend £110bn a year on the state pension, and it provides the majority of the income for nearly half of pensioners.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreJuly 12, 2022
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A crisis of confidence | Standard Life
Action is needed to prevent millions of people in the UK from slipping into financial insecurity in later life.
Standard Life Centre for the Future of RetirementRead moreApril 26, 2022