Having long stood at 60 for women and 65 for men, the state pension age has been steadily rising in recent years.

From November 2018, the state pension age is set to rise beyond 65 for both sexes, reaching 67 by 2028. While this increase has been driven by a rise in average life expectancies, a report from the charity Age UK said the government needs to consider options to protect the most disadvantaged groups in society.

To explore the impact of the rising state pension age, the charity commissioned eight in-depth interviews with people in their 50s and early 60s who were in routine jobs or whose ability to work has been affected by caring responsibilities, health, unemployment/underemployment and who were expecting to rely on the state pension for all or most of their retirement income.

“Not all of us will have a long and healthy retirement and policy needs to be driven by the impact on individuals as well as figures from the Office for National Statistics tables of projected life expectancies,” said Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK.

In recognition of this, the government asked John Cridland, former head of the CBI, a business lobbying group, to lead a review of the wider factors of raising the pension age. Ahead of the full report Age UK urges Cridland and his team to “interrogate the full range of options available to help protect older people who are most affected”.

People set to miss out badly from the higher state pension age include:

• Those in physically demanding jobs such as the building trade which they will struggle to continue doing.
• Those caring for loved ones, which has caused them to scale down or give up work in mid life.
• Those experiencing on-going periods of ill health.

At present over a third of 55-64 year old women, and about a fifth of men the same age, have no private pension savings, while as many as 71% of single pensioners currently receive at least half of their income from state pensions and benefits.

The report stated: “The people we spoke to contrasted their precarious position with others who had good health, jobs they enjoyed and decent private pensions. They thought there should be more flexibility around when people receive their state pension, taking into account people’s health and the contributions they have made throughout their lives.”

Responding Steven Cameron, pensions director at Aegon UK, said: “Age UK’s report offers a timely reminder that while people are on average living longer, health and life expectancy at an individual level is very varied. With every increase to state pension age, more and more people will struggle to stay in work or get by financially until they can draw their state pension. The higher the state pension age becomes, the greater the need to offer more flexibility and this is something the Cridland review must seriously consider.”

Cameron added the state pension is a financial lifeline for millions of people in the UK and with the dawn of pension freedoms allowing people to take private pensions however they like from age 55, Aegon urges the government to extend this approach and offer every individual the option to take their state pension from an earlier age at a reduced level.