Retirement Isn't an Age.
It's an Income.
What’s your future-income number?
Do you know where your income will come from when you decide to stop working?
Most people can tell you roughly when they hope to retire.
Far fewer can tell you what their income will actually be when they get there - or where it's coming from.
Retirement planning isn't really about a date on a calendar.
It's about working out the income you'll need,
Identifying where it's likely to come from,
And closing the gap between the two - with enough time to actually do something about it.
Independent, FCA-authorised advisers | Designing Tomorrow’s Income, Today.
The question most people never quite answer
TD Insight
It's easy to know roughly what you earn today. It's much rarer to know what income your pensions, investments and other assets will actually produce once that salary or business income stops.
Ask most people what their retirement income will look like, and you'll usually get one of two answers.
Either a shrug - "I haven't really worked it out" - or a guess based on a pension statement they glanced at once and haven't thought about since.
That's not a criticism.
Retirement income is genuinely difficult to picture, because it isn't one thing.
It's usually built from several different pieces, accumulated at different times, for different reasons, that nobody has ever added up together.
The starting point isn't a product. It's a question:
What income do I want, later on - and where is it actually going to come from?
Where retirement income actually comes from
For most people, retirement income doesn't come from one place.
It's built from a combination of:
The State Pension - a foundation for most people, but rarely enough on its own to fund the lifestyle they want.
Workplace & personal pensions - built up over a working life, sometimes across several employers.
Investments & ISAs - money set aside and invested outside a pension wrapper.
Property - a home that could be downsized, or other property built up over time.
For business owners - value in the business itself, or cash retained within the company.
Each of these works differently, with its own rules, tax treatment and timing.
We won't repeat all of that detail here - you'll find it on our Pension Planning and Investment Planning pages.
What matters at this stage is simpler: seeing all of it together, as one picture, rather than as separate, disconnected pots.
Working out the gap
TD Question
If you stopped earning tomorrow, do you know what income you'd actually have - and whether it would be enough?
Once you can see where your income might come from, the next step is working out whether it adds up to enough.
A simple way to think about it:
1. What income do you want, later on?
Not a pot size - an actual figure, in today's terms, that would let you live the life you want.
2. What income will you already have?
State Pension, existing pensions, investments, any other income-producing assets.
3. What's the gap?
The difference between the two.
4. What needs to be built - or changed - to close it?
This is where decisions about pensions, investments, property and timing come in.
Starting with the income you want, rather than a headline pot size, gives you something real to plan towards.
TD Fact
According to the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA), a single person currently needs roughly
£13,900 a year for a minimum retirement lifestyle,
£32,700 for a moderate one, and
£45,400 for a comfortable one - figures that already include the full State Pension of £12,548 a year.
For a couple, the equivalent figures are £22,500 (minimum), £45,400 (moderate) and £62,700 (comfortable). These are general industry benchmarks, not a prediction of what any individual or couple will need.
The best time to plan your retirement income was yesterday.
The next best time is today.
If you're a business owner or director
TD Insight
A successful business and a secure personal retirement income are not the same thing.
Building one doesn't automatically build the other.
If you run your own business, it's tempting to think of the business itself as your retirement plan.
That when the time comes, you'll sell it, or simply keep drawing from it for as long as you need to.
That can work.
But it's rarely guaranteed, and it isn't a plan on its own.
Business value isn't guaranteed income. A business might sell for less than expected, take longer to sell than planned, or simply not sell at all.
Retained cash sitting in the company isn't doing anything for your personal retirement income unless there's a deliberate strategy for using it - whether that's pension contributions, dividends, investment, or some combination.
Relying entirely on the business means your retirement income is tied to one asset, in one place, exposed to one set of risks.
None of this means the business shouldn't play a part in your retirement income.
For many business owners, it's a genuinely important piece of the picture.
The point is that it works best as one part of a wider plan - alongside pensions and investments built outside the business - rather than the whole plan by itself.
What happens when you actually start taking the income
TD Tip
The order in which you draw income from different assets - pension, investments, savings - can matter as much as how much you have. Getting this sequencing right is often where good advice adds the most value.
Building up income-producing assets is one part of retirement planning.
Working out how to actually draw an income from them is another - and it's a step that's easy to overlook until it's suddenly close.
Broadly, there are a few different approaches:
Drawdown - leaving your pension invested and drawing an income from it over time. This gives flexibility, but the amount available isn't guaranteed and depends on how the underlying investments perform.
An annuity - exchanging some or all of a pension pot for a guaranteed income for life. This removes the uncertainty of investment performance, but it's generally a one-off, largely irreversible decision.
A blended approach - using a mix of guaranteed income and flexible drawdown, so some of your income is secure and some remains invested.
There's no single right answer here.
The right approach depends on how much certainty you want, how flexible you need to be, and what else you have alongside your pension. Most private pensions can currently be accessed from age 55, rising to 57 from 2028 - though this depends on the specific scheme and current government rules, which can change.
Retirement is a transition, not a deadline
For most people, stopping work isn't a single day.
It's a gradual shift - reducing hours, stepping back from a business, moving into something less demanding before stopping altogether.
Treating retirement as a fixed date can make the whole thing feel more rigid, and more daunting, than it needs to be.
Treating it as an income you're gradually building - one that gives you options, rather than a single decision you make once - tends to make the whole process feel a lot more manageable.
That's really the idea behind everything on this page: designing tomorrow's income, today, so that when the time comes, the choice of when and how to stop working is genuinely yours to make.
How Turkington Davis helps
We follow a straightforward process, 3 step process:
1. Review
Understanding where you are today: existing pensions, investments, property, business position, and what you're already building towards.
2. Blueprint
Working out what future income you actually need, and where the gaps are between what you have and what you want.
3. Grow
Building an appropriate strategy - which may include pensions, investments, protection or business planning - and reviewing it as your circumstances change.
There's no assumption you need to have it all figured out before that first conversation.
Most people don't.
TheReady to see what retirement income actually looks like?
Whether retirement is decades away or just around the corner, every successful financial plan starts with a conversation.
FAQs: Retirement Planning
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There's no single figure - it depends entirely on the lifestyle you want. Industry benchmarks from the Pensions and Lifetime Savings
Association suggest a single person needs somewhere between roughly £13,900 (minimum) and £45,400 (comfortable) a year, and a couple somewhere between £22,500 and £62,700.
But the right starting point is your own income figure, in today's terms, not an industry average.
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This depends on your expected income from all sources.
State Pension, pensions, investments, property and, for business owners, the business itself.
Set against the income you'll need. It's rarely a fixed age; it's the point where your expected income covers the lifestyle you want.
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Pension planning focuses on the pension itself - contributions, tax relief, consolidation.
Retirement planning is broader: it looks at every source of future income together, including pensions, investments, property and business value, and how they combine to fund your retirement.
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It depends on how much certainty you want versus flexibility, and what else you have alongside your pension.
Many people use a blend of the two rather than choosing one exclusively.
This is exactly the kind of decision worth taking advice on, as it's largely irreversible once made.
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Not on its own.
A business can be a valuable part of a retirement income strategy, but relying on it entirely is risky - it may not sell for what you expect, or at all.
Most business owners are better served by building income outside the business as well as within it.
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The State Pension is a government-paid income based on your National Insurance record.
For the 2026/27 tax year, the full new State Pension is £241.30 a week (£12,548 a year), requiring 35 qualifying years of National Insurance contributions.
Your own amount depends on your NI record - check your forecast on GOV.UK.
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That's a very common starting point.
Part of retirement planning is simply understanding what you already have before deciding what, if anything, needs to change.
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The earlier, the better - it gives more time to close any gap between what you have and what you'll need.
That said, it's rarely too late to build a clearer plan, whether retirement is decades away or a few years off.
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You can do parts of it yourself, particularly early on.
Where advice tends to add the most value is in bringing everything together into one plan, and in decisions that are hard to reverse - such as how you draw your income once you stop working.
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Your first consultation is free, so you can talk through your situation and ask questions with no obligation to proceed.
Beyond that, costs depend on the complexity of your circumstances - we'll always explain any charges clearly before you decide whether to go ahead.
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We'd be delighted to help.
If you can't find the answer you're looking for, simply get in touch or book a complimentary Financial Planning Consultation.
We'll be happy to answer any questions and help you decide whether financial planning is right for you.
More Info : Internal Link Suggestions
Pension Planning – making sure your pension is working as hard as you are
Investment Planning – making your money work harder
Financial Planning – turning today's income into tomorrow's lifestyle
Financial Insights - guidance to protect, plan and grow your wealth.
Helpful External Resources
Money Helper - Visit MoneyHelper for free financial guidance
FCA - Find out more about financial advice, consumer protection and choosing an authorised adviser.
Pension Wise - If you're aged 50 or over and have a defined contribution pension, Pension Wise offers free government-backed guidance to help you understand your options.
HMRC - View the latest HMRC guidance
FCA Register - Turkington Davis
The value of pensions and investments and the income they produce can fall as well as rise, and you may get back less than you invested.
The benefits to the treatment of tax depend on your individual circumstances and may change in the future.
This information is for general guidance only and does not constitute personal financial advice.