How to prepare for retirement in the ten years before you stop work
The decade before retirement is unlike any other period in financial planning. It is close enough that the decisions you make now have a direct and meaningful impact on what retirement actually looks like, but far enough away that there is still genuine room to manoeuvre. Ten years is enough time to meaningfully improve your position, close gaps, adjust plans, and make considered decisions rather than reactive ones. It is also short enough that leaving things until later starts to carry real cost.
This guide works through what tends to matter most in the ten years before retirement, roughly in the order it tends to become relevant, and where early attention tends to make the most practical difference. All references to rules, limits, and legislation reflect the position as at 2026 and are subject to change.
Start with a clear picture of what you actually have
Before making any decisions about what to do differently, the most useful first step is understanding where you currently stand. For many people approaching retirement, this alone reveals surprises, sometimes welcome ones, sometimes less so.
That means gathering together all pension provision in one place. Workplace pensions from current and previous employers, any personal pensions, and an up-to-date State Pension forecast all form part of the picture. Old workplace pensions from jobs held years ago are easy to lose track of, and the government's pension tracing service exists specifically to help locate them. It is worth using it if there is any uncertainty about what you have and where it is held.
Once you have a reasonably complete picture, the question becomes whether what you have is likely to produce the retirement income you want, and if not, what the gap looks like and how much time you have to address it.
Understand what retirement will actually cost you
This is a step that many people skip, and it tends to be the source of more unpleasant surprises in retirement than almost anything else. Knowing roughly what you have in your pension is useful. Knowing whether it is enough requires understanding what enough actually means for your specific retirement.
Retirement spending is not simply a continuation of current spending. Some costs fall away, commuting, work-related expenses, pension contributions themselves. Others increase or appear for the first time, travel and leisure in the active early years of retirement, potentially care-related costs later. Thinking through what a typical month might look like in retirement, what your fixed costs are likely to be, and what discretionary spending matters to you tends to produce a more grounded target than borrowing a figure from a general guide.
It is also worth thinking about housing at this stage. Whether the mortgage will be paid off before you retire, whether downsizing is a possibility, and whether you might want to move area all have financial implications worth factoring in early rather than late.
Check and if necessary address your State Pension position
The State Pension forms a meaningful part of retirement income for most people, and the ten-year window before retirement is a particularly important time to check your National Insurance record and understand your forecast entitlement.
If there are gaps in your record that could be filled by voluntary contributions, the closer you are to retirement the more straightforward it tends to be to calculate whether doing so is worthwhile. The cost of filling a gap is known, the additional State Pension it would produce can be calculated, and the breakeven point in years can be worked out. That calculation is considerably harder to make when retirement is twenty years away and circumstances are less certain.
As at 2026, there are rules governing how far back gaps can be filled and what voluntary contributions cost. These rules have changed before and may change again, so checking the current position directly with HMRC or through the government's online tools is the most reliable approach.
Review your pension contributions while there is still time
For many people, the final working years represent a higher earning period than earlier in their career, which can make pension contributions during this time worth reviewing as part of a broader retirement planning conversation. Whether increasing contributions makes sense will depend on individual circumstances, including contribution limits, tax relief rules, and what other financial priorities are in play.
Options that may be available, depending on your scheme and situation, include increasing regular contributions, making additional lump sum contributions, or salary sacrifice arrangements through an employer. A qualified adviser can help you understand what is available to you specifically and whether it is appropriate given your broader circumstances, as the rules in this area are subject to change and general guidance may not reflect your individual position.
Pension values can go down as well as up, and the value of contributions made now will depend on investment performance over the remaining period before retirement.
How to review your pension investment strategy before retirement
The way a pension pot is invested becomes increasingly important as retirement approaches, for reasons that are worth understanding clearly.
During the early decades of pension saving, most people are in the accumulation phase, where the focus is on growing the pot over a long timeframe and where short-term fluctuations in value matter relatively little because there is time to recover. As retirement approaches, the calculus changes. A significant fall in value in the last few years before retirement, without time to recover, can materially affect the income the pot is able to provide.
Many workplace pension schemes operate a process called lifestyling or de-risking, which automatically shifts the investment mix towards lower-risk assets as retirement approaches. Whether your scheme does this, and whether the timing and approach it uses still suits your plans, is worth checking. If your retirement plans have changed, for example if you are planning to use drawdown rather than buy an annuity, the default de-risking approach your scheme uses may no longer be appropriate for your circumstances.
Reviewing your pension investment strategy in the ten years before retirement, and adjusting it if needed, is one of the more consequential decisions of this period and one where professional guidance tends to be worthwhile.
How to decide how to take your pension income
The question of how to access pension savings in retirement is not one to leave until the week before you stop work. The options available, broadly an annuity, drawdown, or a combination of the two, carry different implications for risk, flexibility, tax, and income sustainability, and the right approach depends on individual circumstances that are worth thinking through carefully in advance.
An annuity provides a guaranteed income for life, removing investment risk and longevity risk at the cost of flexibility. Drawdown keeps the pot invested and allows flexible withdrawals, at the cost of ongoing investment risk and the need for active management. Some people use a combination, converting part of the pot into a guaranteed income to cover essential costs and keeping the remainder in drawdown. For a more detailed explanation of how drawdown works, the dedicated guide in this series covers the mechanics, risks, and ongoing management involved.
Understanding how each option works, what the tax implications are, and how they interact with other income sources including the State Pension, is worth exploring well before retirement rather than making the decision under time pressure. This is consistently one of the areas where professional advice tends to add the most value, given the complexity involved and the difficulty of reversing decisions once made.
Think about debt and housing
Arriving at retirement carrying significant debt adds pressure to what retirement income needs to cover, and reduces the flexibility available when income is fixed. The ten years before retirement is a reasonable time to review any outstanding debt, consider whether it can be cleared before you stop work, and think about whether your housing arrangements are likely to remain appropriate and affordable in retirement.
For homeowners with a mortgage, checking when it is due to be paid off relative to your planned retirement date tends to be a worthwhile early step. If the mortgage will run beyond retirement, understanding what the payments will be relative to retirement income, and whether overpaying now to bring forward the end date makes sense, is worth considering.
For people considering downsizing, the financial implications, the equity that might be released, and how that would affect the overall retirement picture are worth factoring into planning conversations well in advance of any actual move.
Protection and estate planning
As retirement approaches, it is worth reviewing protection cover to ensure it still reflects your circumstances. Life insurance needs often change in the final working years as financial dependants change and the mortgage balance reduces. Income protection, which replaces earnings if you are unable to work through illness or injury, remains relevant right up to retirement, though the level and type of cover that is appropriate tends to shift as circumstances change.
Estate planning is also worth beginning to address if you have not already. A will ensures your assets pass according to your wishes rather than the rules of intestacy. A lasting power of attorney allows someone you trust to manage your financial affairs and make decisions on your behalf if you are unable to do so yourself, whether through illness, an accident, or cognitive decline. Many people in their fifties and sixties do not have one in place, and the absence of one can create significant practical and financial difficulties for families if it is ever needed. Setting one up while you have full capacity is considerably simpler than trying to do so later.
Pension death benefit nominations are also worth reviewing. They determine who receives any remaining pension pot and the nominations on file may not reflect current intentions if they were made some years ago or circumstances have since changed.
This is an area where the involvement of a qualified financial adviser, and in some cases a solicitor, tends to be worthwhile.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do with my pension ten years before retirement? The most useful starting point is getting a complete picture of what you have, including all pension pots and a State Pension forecast, and comparing that against a realistic estimate of what retirement is likely to cost. From there, the areas most worth reviewing tend to be your pension investment strategy, whether your contributions reflect your current circumstances and capacity, any gaps in your National Insurance record, and how you are likely to want to take income in retirement. A qualified adviser can help you work through all of these in the context of your specific situation.
How do I know if I am on track for the retirement I want? The starting point is bringing together a complete picture of your pension provision alongside a realistic estimate of what retirement is likely to cost. The gap between the two, if there is one, and the time available to address it, determines whether your current trajectory is likely to be sufficient. A financial adviser can model this more precisely based on your individual circumstances and help identify what adjustments, if any, are worth making.
Is it too late to make a meaningful difference in the ten years before retirement? No. Ten years is a meaningful period in retirement planning terms, and changes made now can have a significant impact on retirement income. Reviewing your pension investment strategy, checking your State Pension position, thinking through how you will draw income, and addressing debt and estate planning matters can all make a real difference. The key is not to assume that decisions made years ago are fixed and cannot be improved upon.
Should I pay off my mortgage or save more into my pension? This is a question with no universal answer, as it depends on the interest rate on your mortgage, your pension contribution position, tax relief available, and your broader financial circumstances. Both have genuine merit in the years approaching retirement, and the right balance tends to be specific to individual circumstances. A qualified adviser can help you think through the trade-offs given your specific situation.
What is lifestyling and should I opt out of it? Lifestyling is an automatic investment strategy used by many workplace pension schemes that gradually shifts the pension pot into lower-risk assets as retirement approaches. It was originally designed for people planning to buy an annuity at retirement. If you are planning to use drawdown instead, the default lifestyling approach may not be appropriate, as the investment needs of a drawdown strategy differ from those of an annuity purchase. It is worth checking how your scheme works and discussing with a financial adviser whether the default approach still suits your plans.
When should I speak to a financial adviser about retirement preparation? Ideally before you need to make any significant decisions, rather than at the point the decisions become urgent. The ten-year mark is a reasonable prompt for an initial conversation if you have not had one recently. A qualified adviser can give you a clearer picture of where you stand, what options are available, and what, if anything, is worth doing differently. The decisions involved in this period carry long-term consequences and tend to benefit from professional input.
What happens to my pension if I die before I retire? This depends on the type of pension you hold and the nominations you have in place. For defined contribution pensions, the pot can typically be passed to nominated beneficiaries, and the tax treatment depends on the rules in force at the time and your age at death. For defined benefit pensions, the scheme rules determine what benefits are paid to dependants. Reviewing your death benefit nominations to ensure they reflect your current wishes is worth doing as part of broader retirement preparation, particularly if your circumstances have changed since the nominations were originally made.
The Government intends to bring in significant changes from 6th April 2027 as to how personal pensions are dealt with on death. After this date they will be included as part of your estate for inheritance tax purposes.
A final note
The ten years before retirement are genuinely consequential. The decisions made in this period, about pension investment strategy, contributions, debt, income options, and estate planning, tend to have a more direct and immediate impact on retirement outcomes than decisions made earlier in a career, when there was more time for course correction. The degree of complexity involved, and the difficulty of reversing some of these decisions once made, means this is a period where taking stock carefully and seeking professional guidance tends to pay dividends. Starting that process sooner rather than later tends to leave more options open.