Hundred SummersDefined benefit pension early retirement calculator: the reduction and the breakeven
Your scheme’s reduction per year early, compounded, gives the pension from the age you choose; the income received before normal pension age, and the age at which the full pension’s cumulative total overtakes it, with both increasing each year. Your figures never leave your browser.
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Worked example
Computed when this page was built by the same engine that runs the calculator above, so the figures below and the live tool can never disagree. Change any input above to see your own.
| Inputs | |
|---|---|
| Pension at normal pension age | £20,000 a year at 67 |
| Taken at | 60 |
| Scheme reduction | 5% per year early |
| Pension increases | 2.5% |
| Results | |
|---|---|
| Reduced pension from 60 | £13,967 a year (30.2% less) |
| Received before 67 | £105,414 |
| Breakeven age | 79 |
| Cumulative by 90: early / full | £613,178 / £727,105 |
The next question
How long would my savings last alongside it? →Pension drawdown calculator
Or answer it with everything else: the full Hundred Summers plan connects your pay, pensions, savings, property, tax and spending year by year, and stress-tests them across 500 simulated market histories.
Read the guide
- What a defined benefit pension is actually worth →NHS, teachers, civil service, old company schemes: why £10,000/yr of DB pension is worth more than most people's entire DC pot, how to compare added-pension offers, and why transferring out is almost always wrong.
How the reduction works
A defined benefit pension is promised from the scheme’s normal pension age. Take it earlier and the scheme applies an early retirement factor for each year early: commonly 4–6% a year in the 2015 career-average public schemes, compounding, and set by the scheme actuary to be roughly cost-neutral to the scheme on average. That word “average” is the whole decision: the factors assume typical life expectancy, so the trade favours you if your health or family history points to a shorter life or if the income lets you stop a job that is wearing you out, and favours waiting if you expect to be drawing it at 90.
What to check before deciding
Your scheme’s actual factor table (they vary by age, section and scheme), whether a lump sum is automatic or optional and its commutation rate, whether the State Pension bridges anything, and abatement if you return to the same employer. The defined benefit guide explains what the pension is worth; the life expectancy calculator gives the planning horizon; and the Hundred Summers app runs the retirement at either age with the pension, the State Pension and everything else together.
Sources
- Scheme early retirement factors: NHS Pensions, Teachers’ Pensions, Civil Service Pensions; each publishes its own tables.
- Normal minimum pension age: gov.uk.