Retirement Living Standards Research

What's this all about?

Pensions UK (formally the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association or ‘PLSA’) regularly updates its Retirement Living Standards (RLS) to reflect changes in the cost of living. The new figures in the latest update, published on 3rd June 2025, show a reduction in the cost of achieving the Minimum standard, while the Moderate and Comfortable standards have increased slightly.

Hymans Robertson has analysed the new Retirement Living Standards to assess how likely individuals are to achieve each level. Crucially, these standards do not account for paying housing costs in retirement, and the analysis shows that including housing costs significantly affects the likelihood of someone reaching even the Minimum standard. For example, an individual earning £20,000 and contributing 8% to their pension has a 98% chance of reaching the Minimum standard. However, when housing costs are factored in, that likelihood drops sharply to just 43%.

What does this mean for UK employers?

If the Retirement Living Standards are referred to in any communications provided to your employees (either within your own company communications or in the communications from their pension provider) you need to ensure these communications are up to date and reflect the latest standards.

You may also wish to run an analysis of your memberships’ retirement outcomes against the RLS to understand your members’ likelihood of achieving each standard and should consider what (if any) action could be taken to improve the outcomes for members.