Most people approaching retirement have several pensions, a rough idea of when they want to stop, and a growing list of questions about how the money actually comes out. Retirement planning turns those questions into a coherent answer: when you can retire, how to take the income, how much is enough, and how the pieces fit together. We are independent advisers based in Maidstone, Kent, serving clients throughout Kent, London and the South East.
Most people approaching retirement have several pensions, a rough idea of when they want to stop, and a growing list of questions about how the money actually comes out. Retirement planning turns those questions into a coherent answer: when you can retire, how to take the income, how much is enough, and how the pieces fit together. We are independent advisers based in Maidstone, Kent, serving clients throughout Kent, London and the South East.
Private pensions carry the early years; the State Pension joins later to share the load.
Most people in their late 50s and early 60s have several pensions stacked up from previous employers, a rough idea of when they might stop working, and a growing list of questions about how the money actually comes out. Retirement planning is the work of answering them: when you can retire, how to take the income, how much is enough, and how the pieces fit with the rest of your finances.
55 → 57
Pension access age, rising from 6 April 2028
66
State Pension age for 2026/27
£268,275
Tax-free lump sum allowance, 2026/27
Retirement planning is the process of organising your pensions, savings, and investments to fund the life you want once you stop working. A plan takes a whole-picture view of every pot you have built up, looks forward to the income you will need and when, and revisits the decisions as tax rules, markets, and your own plans shift. Retirement income tends to draw on four sources at once — and most people hold some of each without having mapped how they combine.
A defined contribution pension is one where the value depends on what has been paid in and how the investments have performed. You can typically access one from age 55, rising to 57 from 6 April 2028.
A defined benefit (final salary) pension pays a set income based on your salary and years of service, regardless of investment returns. Each has its own normal retirement age, often 60 or 65.
A government income from State Pension age — 66 for 2026/27, rising to 67 — paid under the triple lock. What you receive depends on your National Insurance record.
Tax-free withdrawals from ISAs and tax-efficient savings that sit alongside pension income — useful in years when other income is already at the top of a tax band, or as a bridge before pensions and the State Pension are drawn.
Why the order matters. Drawing too heavily from a taxable pension in a single year can push income into a higher tax band; leaning on ISA savings instead can keep more of the pension intact for later. A retirement plan brings these decisions together rather than tackling them one at a time, and then revisits them as rules and markets shift — which is what separates a plan from a one-off decision about a single pot.
Your options at retirement
A defined contribution pension can be turned into income in several ways: an annuity (a guaranteed income for life), flexi-access drawdown (a flexible income with the rest staying invested), or cash taken as lump sums (taxed as income above the tax-free element). Deferring is a further option.
| Annuity | Flexi-access drawdown | Cash | Defer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income certainty | Guaranteed for life | Depends on fund performance | One-off (or staged) lump sum | None — pension stays untouched |
| Flexibility | Low — terms set at purchase | High — adjust each year | Highest — money in your hands | High — review annually |
| Investment risk | None once the annuity is bought | Continues — fund value can fall | Whatever the cash is then used for | Continues — fund value can fall |
| Passing it on | Usually ends with you (unless a guarantee or joint-life option is chosen) | Remaining fund can pass to beneficiaries | Whatever remains forms part of your estate | Full fund preserved for now |
| Tends to suit | People who value certainty and a known income for life | People with other income who can absorb investment risk | People meeting a specific large need or wanting full control | People still earning or with other income covering retirement |
| Key trade-off | Certainty for flexibility | Flexibility for ongoing investment risk | Control for tax efficiency | Time for compound growth potential |
Up to 25% of a pension can typically be taken as a tax-free lump sum, known as the Pension Commencement Lump Sum (PCLS), subject to an overall lump sum allowance of £268,275 for the 2026/27 tax year; the remaining 75% is taxed as income at your marginal rate. One tax point catches people out: once you take taxable income flexibly from a pension, the amount you can pay in each year is sharply reduced by the Money Purchase Annual Allowance, to £10,000 for 2026/27.
How much do I need to retire?
How much you need depends on the lifestyle you want, your housing costs, and how long retirement lasts. The Retirement Living Standards published by Pensions UK set out three benchmarks for a single person — a useful starting point before you test them against your own pensions and savings. They assume you own your home outright, so rent or a remaining mortgage would sit on top. The full new State Pension is £12,548 a year for 2026/27, useful as a floor but below even the minimum benchmark on its own.
| Lifestyle (single person) | Per year |
|---|---|
| Minimum | £13,900 |
| Moderate | £31,700 |
| Comfortable | £43,900 |
Indicative Retirement Living Standards figures for a single person, with higher figures for couples sharing costs. Source: retirementlivingstandards.org.uk.
Cashflow modelling
Cashflow modelling projects your income, spending, and assets year by year. It shows how long the money is likely to last under different assumptions about returns, inflation, and spending — and makes the effect of a decision visible before it is made: retiring two years earlier, taking a larger tax-free lump sum, or spending more in the early, active years. Seeing those trade-offs on a chart tends to be far more useful than any rule of thumb.
Illustrative only — the gap (Moderate benchmark less the full new State Pension) is a schematic example, not a forecast or a personal recommendation.
Pulling your pensions together
Combining several pensions into one arrangement can simplify administration, reduce charges in some cases, and make income easier to plan. But some older schemes carry valuable guarantees that would be lost on transfer — so each scheme needs checking individually before any decision, which is exactly the check a regulated adviser is required to carry out.
Guaranteed annuity rates, protected tax-free cash above 25%, or defined benefit features can be lost permanently on transfer. Some pensions carry guarantees a specialist should assess first.
Some schemes apply exit penalties, or include valuable life cover that ends once the pension moves. Charges and fund choices often go unreviewed for years.
Most people in their 50s have three or more pots across employers. The GOV.UK Pension Tracing Service helps find a provider from a former employer’s name.
Once the pots are identified and reviewed, the question of whether to combine them can be answered properly. Our bringing your pensions together page goes into the mechanics.
Who we work with
We work with mid-career professionals and business owners building toward retirement, pre-retirees within five years of stopping work, and retirees managing income through drawdown or after an annuity purchase. Most clients are based across Kent, London and the South East, served in person from our Maidstone office, with remote service for clients further afield.
Typically in their late 40s and early 50s, with meaningful pensions and savings, who want to know whether the arrangements they have are doing the right job. The conversation often starts with consolidation, contribution levels, and tax efficiency, well before any retirement date is fixed.
Facing decisions that are largely irreversible: how to take the tax-free cash, whether to draw flexibly or buy an annuity, when to start the State Pension, and what to do about a defined benefit scheme. Here the specifics matter, and so does the order in which things are done.
Who want a firm that will manage the plan year on year — reviewing investments, adjusting drawdown levels, watching the tax position, and stepping in when something changes. The work rarely sits in isolation.
Across all three groups, the work connects to inheritance tax, protection, and cashflow, which is why retirement planning tends to sit alongside our wider financial planning service.
Our retirement planning service follows a three-step process. The structure is deliberately simple, because the value is in how thoroughly each step is done.
Understand your pensions, savings, and goals.
A detailed fact-find covering your existing pensions, savings, investments, intended retirement age, lifestyle expectations, and attitude to risk. We look at dependents, expected major expenses, inheritance tax exposure, and any defined benefit or safeguarded benefits. This is where cashflow modelling earns its place, showing what the numbers look like over a full retirement rather than at a single point in time.
Put the retirement plan in place.
A written suitability report sets out our recommendations and the reasoning behind them. From there, we handle the paperwork: pension applications and transfers, drawdown set-up where that is the chosen route, annuity research and purchase, ISA contributions, and any consolidation work that follows. The aim is that the plan is put in place properly, with the administration handled on your behalf.
Keep the plan on track as life and rules change.
Plans need revisiting. Markets move, tax rules change, and circumstances evolve. We hold structured reviews at agreed intervals and run shorter check-ins when something material happens — a redundancy, an inheritance, a change in health, or a significant shift in spending. Retirement is not a single decision made once; it is a position that needs managing over time.
Behind that process sits a firm with unusual continuity. The H&D name traces back to Harris & Dixon, a City of London house whose roots reach toward 1797 — a name that has moved through different trades and several centuries. What endured was never the ledger but the instinct behind it: knowing your client, holding their interests above the transaction. The advice business that carries the name today has looked after individuals and families since 1987. Read more about our heritage, or meet the team behind H&D.
H&D Financial Planning is independent. We are not tied or restricted to any product provider, and our recommendations are based on a comprehensive and fair review of the market, made in your best interests. On a decision as long-lived as a retirement plan, that difference compounds. You can check the firm’s status on the Financial Services Register.
A restricted adviser chooses from a single provider or an agreed panel; we consider every suitable option and recommend what fits you.
To implement advice we use a carefully selected range of investment managers and platforms, kept under regular review.
We are part of the Loyal North Group; where a group firm is among the options we consider, we say so clearly, and any recommendation is made on its merits.
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My job is to help you make the decisions that still make sense years from now.”
You can typically start taking money from a defined contribution pension from age 55, rising to 57 from 6 April 2028. The first 25% can usually be taken tax-free, subject to an overall lump sum allowance of £268,275 for the 2026/27 tax year. The remainder is taxed as income at your marginal rate when drawn.
The full new State Pension is £241.30 a week, or £12,548 a year, for the 2026/27 tax year. The amount you receive depends on your National Insurance record: typically 35 qualifying years for the full amount and at least 10 to receive anything. Gaps can sometimes be filled with voluntary contributions. Check your forecast on GOV.UK.
Drawdown leaves your pension invested and lets you take a flexible income while the rest stays in the market, so the income can rise or fall with the fund value. An annuity converts your pension into a guaranteed income for life at the rate set when you buy. Drawdown gives flexibility; an annuity gives certainty. Many retirees use both across different pots.
You can typically access a defined contribution pension from age 55, rising to 57 from 6 April 2028, well before State Pension age. Whether you can afford to retire early is a separate question. It depends on the income your pensions, savings, and investments can provide, how long retirement is likely to last, and how much you draw in the early years.
You can plan retirement yourself, and free guidance is available: Pension Wise offers a free appointment for over-50s on defined contribution pensions, and MoneyHelper explains how to choose an adviser. A regulated independent adviser adds whole-of-market product selection, cross-asset tax planning, and ongoing review of the plan.
If you’d like to talk through your own situation with one of our advisers, get in touch. The first conversation is on us, with no obligation to proceed. We’ll listen, ask the questions that matter, and tell you honestly whether we’re the right firm to help.
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