2025-11-12
When to review your pension before leaving work
A practical timeline for checking contributions, charges and projected income in the decade before retirement.
Most people begin thinking seriously about pension income only a year or two before they stop working. By then, some choices — contribution rates, fund switches and State Pension timing — have already narrowed.
A useful checkpoint sits around age fifty-five to sixty. Ask your scheme for a current valuation, the annual management charge and an illustration of income at different retirement ages. Compare those figures with a rough monthly budget that includes housing, food, travel and a modest leisure allowance.
If you hold several pots, list them side by side: provider, fund type, charges and projected value. Consolidation can reduce paperwork, but it is not always better — especially where valuable guarantees or employer matching would be lost.
Bring the paperwork to an adviser only after you have written down three questions: when you hope to stop work, what income you need, and which pots you are prepared to leave untouched for longer. Those answers shorten the first meeting and keep the conversation grounded.