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How long might you live?

People are living longer. Improved healthcare, working conditions and a reduction in smoking rates have all contributed to increasing life expectancy from generation to generation.

Understanding how long you might live is an important part of planning for retirement, especially if you’re considering the drawdown option, as you’ll need to make sure your money lasts as long as you need it to.

The National average for a typical 65-year-old, in good health, as at September 2020 suggests they could expect to reach an age of:

  • 86 for women
  • 84 for men

So, if you are retiring at age 65, you could live for at least 20 years after that (based on data from the Office of National Statistics). That’s 20 years of paying for the things you’ll need and want.

But we’re not all ‘typical’, it’s possible you could live a shorter time or much longer than this. In fact, 1 in 4 65-year-olds retiring now could live in to their 90s and 1 in 33 could live to 100, so they’d need to manage their money wisely! Here’s a breakdown of percentages to give you some more idea.

A 65-year-old woman retiring now has A 65-year-old man retiring now has
75% chance of living to 81 75% chance of living to 80
50% chance of living to 88 50% chance of living to 86
25% chance of living to 94 25% chance of living to 92
5% chance of living to 100 5% chance of living to 100

To get your life expectancy estimate, enter your age and sex into the Office for National Statistics calculator below to find out how long you could live, and the likelihood of you living to be 100 years old!

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Built on behalf of the The First Bus Retirement Savings Plan by Willis Towers Watson. The information
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External links and external content are selected and reviewed when the page is published. The Scheme, the Trustee and WTW are not responsible for the content of external websites. The inclusion of a link to an external website should not be understood to be an endorsement of that website or the site’s owners (or their products/services). Copyright © 2024 Willis Towers Watson. All rights reserved.
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