What the model assumes about the United Kingdom

This page collects every United Kingdom-specific number the model starts from: when the state pension begins and how it behaves, what healthcare and long-term care cost, what a retired household spends, and how tax is worked out. The planner prefills each of them, and you can change any of them during setup. Amounts are in GBP at today's prices, and the same data files drive the simulation itself, so a figure you read here is the figure your plan runs on.

The state pension

Starts at 68. The planner uses this both as your default retirement age and as the start age of your state pension.

Source: House of Commons Library (2025). See it.

With inflation, plus 1.0 points a year. The UK state pension rises each April by the highest of price inflation, average wage growth, or 2.5 percent, a rule known as the triple lock. Over the last fifteen years that lifted it by about one point above inflation a year.

Source: Office for National Statistics (2026). See it.

What a surviving partner keeps: nothing passes on. Under the new State Pension there is generally nothing to inherit when a partner dies. Small exceptions exist for people with a protected payment or older additional pension rights from before April 2016.

Source: GOV.UK, Department for Work and Pensions (2026). See it.

How the simulation pays and raises pensions: the income section of the technical reference. What changes at the first death: the couples section.

Healthcare

£367 a year for each person, at 65. Health spending outside long-term care: visits, medicines, glasses, dental work and any premiums you pay yourself. The planner starts from this figure and moves it as you age.

Source: Office for National Statistics (2026). See it.

How the model ages this figure: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Long-term care

£67,496 a year out of your own pocket if you need residential care. You pay the full price until your savings run down far enough to qualify for help.

Source: Department of Health and Social Care (GOV.UK) (2026). See it.

The model does not add the whole charge on top of your budget: the groceries, and for renters the housing, that a care home replaces are credited back. How the care model works.

What a retired household spends

£1,470 + £984/mo for one person, £1,921 + £1,475/mo for a couple. Essential spending plus everything-else spending, each month, excluding housing and healthcare, which the planner asks about separately. The prefills come from PLSA/CRSP Retirement Living Standards, Moderate tier, outside London (2026 update, 'RLS 2025 uprated' budgets).

Source: PLSA/CRSP Retirement Living Standards, Moderate tier, outside London (2026 update, 'RLS 2025 uprated' budgets) (2026). See it.

What each budget covers and how spending changes with age: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Tax

The model recalculates your tax bill for every simulated year, using United Kingdom's own scales, allowances and thresholds for the 2026 tax year, last read on 2026-07-27. The answers are checked against worked examples. Couples are assessed together where the rules allow it.

How United Kingdom taxes a retirement plan lists every figure, the tax office page each one came from, and everything the model does not do there.

Everything we read

Every publication behind the pension, care, healthcare and budget figures above. The tax page carries its own references, one per figure.