UK Retirement Planner

What this planner does

The Compare Drawdown Retirement Planner is a free tool that builds a year-by-year projection of your retirement income from every source you have — defined contribution pensions, defined benefit pensions, the State Pension, ISAs, general investment accounts and cash savings. It applies UK tax rules, models inflation, and shows whether your plan can sustain the lifestyle you want.

Use it before you commit to a drawdown strategy or buy an annuity. The numbers it produces are not advice — they're a starting point for a conversation with a regulated adviser, and a sanity-check on the rule-of-thumb withdrawal rates that get quoted in the press.

What it covers

• Year-by-year income projections to age 95+, with charts showing where the money comes from each year.
• State Pension included automatically once you reach State Pension Age (currently 67), at the full new State Pension rate of £11,502/year for 2025/26.
• Defined benefit (final-salary) pensions modelled with their actual escalation rules — CPI, RPI, fixed 3%, or level.
• Defined contribution pots projected forward using your chosen growth rate, with withdrawals taxed correctly under UK income-tax bands.
• ISAs (stocks & shares and cash) modelled tax-free, drawn as a flexible income source.
• Stress scenarios: model a market crash early in retirement, longer-than-expected life expectancy, or a higher-inflation environment.
• UK tax bands for 2025/26 baked in — Personal Allowance £12,570, Basic Rate to £50,270, Higher Rate to £125,140, Additional Rate above.
• Compares your projected income against the PLSA Retirement Living Standards — Minimum (£14,400), Moderate (£31,300) and Comfortable (£43,100) per year.

Who it's for

Anyone aged 50+ who wants to see whether their retirement savings can fund the retirement they want. It's particularly useful if you have multiple pension pots from different employers, a mix of defined benefit and defined contribution, or you're trying to decide between annuity and drawdown.

You'll need a free account to save plans (so you can come back and edit them), but the planner itself is free with no upsells. We never sell or share the data you put into it.

How long it takes

Most people complete a first plan in 5–10 minutes. You'll need rough figures for: current pension pot size(s), expected State Pension (check your forecast at gov.uk), any defined benefit entitlements, ISA/savings balances, and your target annual retirement income. You can always refine the figures later.

After you have a plan

The output is a clear year-by-year income table plus charts showing how the components add up over time. You can use it to ask better questions of your IFA, decide which pots to draw from first for tax efficiency, model what happens if you retire two years earlier, or test whether you can afford a one-off purchase like a new car or a child's deposit.

If your projection shows your money running out before age 95, the planner flags it so you can adjust withdrawal rates, retirement age, or savings contributions until the numbers work.

Get started

Sign in or create a free account on this page to start building your plan. Already a member? Your existing plans will load automatically when you sign in.