What the model assumes about the United Kingdom

This page collects every United Kingdom-specific number the model starts from: when the state pension begins and how it behaves, what healthcare and long-term care cost, what a retired household spends, and how tax is worked out. The planner prefills each of them, and you can change any of them during setup. Amounts are in GBP at today's prices, and the same data files drive the simulation itself, so a figure you read here is the figure your plan runs on.

The state pension

Starts at 66 to 68, depending on the year you were born. It is 66 if you were born in 1960 or earlier, 67 if you were born from 1961 to 1977, and 68 if you were born in 1978 or later. For people born between 6 April 1960 and 5 March 1961, or between 6 April 1977 and 5 April 1978, the law sets the age in months between these; the planner rounds to the nearest whole year. The planner uses the age for your year of birth both as your default retirement age and as the start age of your state pension.

Source: House of Commons Library (2025). See it.

With inflation, plus 1.0 points a year. The UK state pension rises each April by the highest of price inflation, average wage growth, or 2.5 percent, a rule known as the triple lock. Over the last fifteen years that lifted it by about one point above inflation a year.

Source: Office for National Statistics (2026). See it.

What a surviving partner keeps: nothing passes on. Under the new State Pension there is generally nothing to inherit when a partner dies. Small exceptions exist for people with a protected payment or older additional pension rights from before April 2016.

Source: GOV.UK, Department for Work and Pensions (2026). See it.

How the simulation pays and raises pensions: the income section of the technical reference. What changes at the first death: the couples section.

Healthcare

£367 a year for each person, at 65. Health spending outside long-term care: visits, medicines, glasses, dental work and any premiums you pay yourself. The planner starts from this figure and moves it as you age.

Source: Office for National Statistics (2026). See it.

How the model ages this figure: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Long-term care

£67,496 a year out of your own pocket if you need residential care. State help is means-tested, and a household with retirement savings pays the full price. The simulation charges that price for as long as care lasts and never switches to state help as your savings run down.

Source: Department of Health and Social Care (GOV.UK) (2026). See it.

The model does not add the whole charge on top of your budget: the groceries, and for renters the housing, that a care home replaces are credited back. How the care model works.

What a retired household spends

£1,470 + £984/mo for one person, £1,921 + £1,475/mo for a couple. Essential spending plus everything-else spending, each month, excluding housing and healthcare, which the planner asks about separately. The prefills come from PLSA/CRSP Retirement Living Standards, Moderate tier, outside London (2026 update, 'RLS 2025 uprated' budgets).

Source: PLSA/CRSP Retirement Living Standards, Moderate tier, outside London (2026 update, 'RLS 2025 uprated' budgets) (2026). See it.

What each budget covers and how spending changes with age: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Tax

The model recalculates your tax bill for every simulated year, using United Kingdom's own scales, allowances and thresholds for the 2026 tax year, last read on 2026-07-27. The answers are checked against worked examples. Each partner in a couple is taxed separately, on their own income.

How United Kingdom taxes a retirement plan lists every figure, the tax office page each one came from, and everything the model does not do there. Accounts in United Kingdom describes each kind of account and pension the planner offers there: when money can come out, how it is taxed, and where we read the rules.

Everything we read

Every publication behind the pension, care, healthcare and budget figures above. The tax page carries its own references, one per figure.