How much you actually need in your pension: rethinking retirement income for women
Published 1 October 2026
This is a common question that I am asked, and there is no one size fits all answer (sorry, I wish there was!)
The answer is it depends entirely on what kind of retirement you want, when you want it to start, and what other income and assets you have alongside your pension.
I covered this in detail in an earlier blog: How much do you really need to retire comfortably?
Here is another way of thinking about the question than simply aiming for a round number you have seen somewhere online.
Why the gender pension gap matters here
Women often reach retirement age with considerably smaller pension pots than men, frequently because of career breaks, part time work, or lower average earnings across a working life. If this describes your situation, it does not mean your options are limited, but it does mean the planning conversation is worth having earlier rather than later, so there is more time and more flexibility to close any gap that exists.
Start with what you actually want your retirement to look like
Rather than starting with a savings target, it helps to start with the life you want funding. Do you want to stop work entirely at a set age, or would you prefer to reduce your hours gradually. Do you want to travel significantly in the early years of retirement, when you are likely to be most active, and settle into a lower cost of living later. Are there family commitments, such as supporting children or grandchildren, that you want your pension to accommodate.
Once you have a clearer sense of the life you are funding, it becomes much easier to work out roughly what annual income that requires, and from there, what size of pension pot might support it.
In an earlier blog, I looked at how to track your expenses, which helps you think about what future you may need too: How to track your expenses and start building wealth
Understanding your existing pensions
Many women I work with have several pensions scattered across previous employers, sometimes without a clear picture of what each is worth or how it is invested. Bringing these together into a clear overall picture, understanding whether they are defined benefit or defined contribution, and checking how they are currently invested, is often the single most useful first step, regardless of what stage of your career you are at.
The role of the state pension
Your state pension forms part of the picture too, though it is rarely enough on its own to fund the retirement most people want. Checking your state pension forecast and understanding your national insurance record is worth doing early, particularly if you have had career breaks, since gaps can sometimes be filled through voluntary contributions depending on your circumstances.
Thinking about investment risk as retirement approaches
As you move closer to the age you plan to access your pension, it is worth revisiting how it is invested. Pension funds are typically invested, and the value of those investments can go down as well as up, and it could possibly less than the amount invested, especially over a short period. Some people choose to gradually reduce the level of investment risk as they approach retirement, while others remain invested for longer because they plan to draw on their pension gradually over many years rather than all at once. There is no single right approach, and it depends on your own timeframe, your other assets, and how comfortable you are with that movement in value.
Contributing more, even later on
It is a common misconception that if you have not saved enough by a certain age, there is little point increasing contributions. This is rarely true. Eligible pension contributions attract tax relief, and even contributions made in your fifties or later can make a meaningful difference to your eventual retirement income, particularly if you delay when you start drawing on your pension.
Bringing it all together
Working out how much you actually need is less about hitting a specific number and more about understanding the gap, if any, between where your current pensions are heading and the retirement you actually want, then deciding what to do about that gap with enough time to make a difference.
If you would like help understanding your own pension position and what it means for the retirement you want, I would be glad to talk it through with you.
SJP approved 24/09/2026
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