Your Pension - Your Future 

The Retirement Living Standards (RLS) were recently updated and could help you understand how much you need to save for life after work.

Developed by Loughborough University and Pensions UK, the RLS are a practical tool to help people understand what life in retirement can look like at 3 different levels: minimum, moderate and comfortable.

They consider if you live alone or with another person, and factor in things like:

• the current cost-of-living
• lifestyle choices, such as holidays, clothing and transport
• food and drink, and
• household costs, such as council tax, energy and water

The 2025 RLS updates

Compared to the previous 2 years, 2025 has seen smaller increases to the amounts required for moderate (+£800 per year) and comfortable (+£400 per year) standards of living in the RLS, and a reduction (-£1000) to the amount required for the minimum living standard, for a single person in retirement.

The changes in the Moderate and Comfortable standards are largely due to the impact of inflation across many types of spending, offset by a decrease in energy costs.

Research for the Minimum standard of living found there had been some further decreases in expenditure on items such as technology, hairdressing, clothing, charitable donations and taxi use in this category, although there had been an increase in the budget for rail fares (from £100-£180 per year).

If you live in London, the costs will be higher than those shown above and can be found in full here.

How to use the RLS

While not a fixed savings target, the Retirement Living Standards do provide a general guide to the costs of living in retirement and could be a useful consideration in your pensions planning.

Research shows that by having a clear savings goal, it brings you clarity, inspires action, and means you more likely to achieve it.

You can use the RLS as a starting point to think about what you might be likely to spend on household expenses, food, holidays and transportation, and adjust those figures to suit your own needs.

Bear in mind that the RLS assume you won’t have a mortgage or rent in retirement, so if you’re likely to still be paying either of those, you should include that in your budget too. 

Once you have a savings goal to aim for, you can check if you’re likely to reach it. Remember to include all your possible sources of income and add those together to see how much income you might have overall.

For example,

• You can get a projection of your Zurich pension by logging in to your online account 
• You can get a projection of your State Pension, including when it is due, by checking on the government website 
  
• You can also ask any other pension providers for a projection of your pension benefits. If you've lost track of a pension, you can search for it on the government website. The forthcoming Pensions Dashboards programme is also designed to help people trace old pension pots. Keep an eye on the Pensions Dashboards website for any updates. 
  

If you’re worried the income, you will have when you stop work won’t be enough to cover your expected costs, there may be other steps you can take, and it could be worth speaking to a regulated financial adviser. You can find an adviser via the MoneyHelper website.