Research has shown there is a lack of awareness about the next change to the State Pension Age (SPA).
The changes to SPA have proved fertile grounds for controversy. The move to equalise women’s and men’s SPA at 65, which completed in November 2018, is still a source of dispute. In March 2024, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) published a report recommending that the women affected by that change should each receive up to £3,000 compensation.
A couple of days before parliament rose for its Christmas 2024 recess, the government announced that it disagreed with the PHSO and would not be following its recommendations. Despite members of the government being supportive of the affected women while on the opposition benches, the move was no surprise given the suggested compensation would raise a potential bill of up to £10.5 billion.
The PHSO argued that past governments had not communicated clearly enough to inform the affected women about their SPA changes. Although the equalization of SPA was made law in 1995 with an original target date of April 2020, new laws introduced in 2011 brought that date forward to November 2018. These laws also introduced a further increase in APA to 66 by October 2020.
Next change on the horizon
In less than a year, the next phasing in of the SPA increase to 67 starts with an end date in April 2028. You might have thought that the protracted debate and well-publicised legal arguments about equalisation would have meant that those affected (anyone born after 6 April 1960) knew about the change. However, recent research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) revealed that many people remain unaware.
The IFS found that among people born between 1955 and 1965 who were interviewed between 2021 and 2023 as part of a long-term study of ageing, 40% were unclear on State Pension Age status:
- 60% knew their SPA to an accuracy of within three months.
- 18% overestimated their SPA, expecting it to be higher than legislated.
- 11% underestimated their SPA.
- 11% fell into the ‘Don’t know’ category.
These figures are quite striking, especially considering that the State Pension accounts for approximately 44% of the overall income for current pensioners on average, accordingly to the IFS and, as the IFS noted, “Knowing one’s state pension age is crucial for financial and retirement planning.”
So which category do you fall into? If you’d like to prove yourself right (or wrong) about your State Pension Age, you can check it at: https://www.gov.uk/state-pension-age.
22nd May 2025
