NextWealth and Aegon have published the fourth annual report on ‘Managing Lifetime Wealth: retirement planning in the UK’. Over the course of the research Richard Parkin and the team at NextWealth have charted the continued rise in demand for retirement advice. This rise has come against a backdrop of a collapse in the DB transfer market, continued regulatory disruption and a global pandemic.

This report defines current practices and approaches to managing lifetime wealth for clients, allowing financial advice professionals to benchmark their own approaches against those of their peers. We continue to see growing sophistication in the use of planning tools to support withdrawal strategies and streamlining of the investment proposition to simplify the advice process. These are good signs.

The results are based on an online survey of 212 financial planners conducted between 29 November and 9 December 2021.

Key Findings

• Demand for retirement advice continues to grow. Almost half of financial advisers (47%) say that demand for retirement advice has increased more than usual due to the pandemic
• Since 2018 there has been a significant shift away from using fixed rates towards using modelling tools.
• Trends indicate a shift in client base towards full retirement. Over 40% are still fully employed down 5% from the previous year.