UK pension stress test

Every assumption is visible and editable. The model runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere, stored, or logged.

This is information, not advice. We are not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, we do not give regulated financial advice, and nothing here is a recommendation. This site names no pension product, fund or provider, and never will.

The figures are illustrations produced by a model from assumptions you choose — not forecasts, and not statements about what will happen. If you are making an irreversible decision about a pension, free impartial guidance is available from MoneyHelper, and Pension Wise offers a free appointment from age 50.

Your situation

In today's money. The model increases it with inflation each year.


£12,548 is the full new State Pension. Most people get less — check your forecast.


Take 25% tax-free cash at the start
…and spend it on something other than income

Tax-free cash spent elsewhere is not available to fund income later. In this model that changes the outcome more than any other single input.

Assumptions — argue with these

Nothing here is a fact. These are the numbers that decide the answer, so they belong to you, not to us.

5% nominal less 2% inflation = 2.94% a year after inflation.

The FCA prescribes returns but not volatility. This one is a guess — ours or yours, but a guess.

Most calculators never say which. Under one convention volatility lowers the compound return; under the other it does not. The two give different answers.

Frozen bands shrink in real terms every year — "fiscal drag". Current policy is a freeze, so 0 is the optimistic setting.


of simulations funded the full income to age 95
income that lasted in 9 runs out of 10 after tax, today's money
typical age the pot runs dry, when it does  

What happens to the pot

Median Middle half of outcomes 90% of outcomes

Total value in today's money, including any tax-free cash still unspent. Hover for the numbers.

How long the money lasted, by income level

The share of simulations in which the money lasted to your end age, at each level of income. The ring marks the income you set.

Table view
Income after taxShare of runs it lasted

The assumptions behind this result