Top 10 most Googled retirement questions

Our first question is a nice and simple one, with around 7,200 Google searches in the last year.

In the UK, the standard retirement age is 66. Of course, this is just the official age of retirement with regards to state pensions.

You can retire earlier if you wish, or you can retire later. Plenty of people keep on working well into their elder years.

Acclaimed British actor, Christopher Lee was still working in his 90s!

While many of us will be able to retire at 66 with a spring in our step, for some of us, retirement might come early due to unforeseen medical complications. This is something that concerns at least 3,000 people.

Ill health retirement qualifies as any health problem that makes you permanently incapable of continuing to do your job. This can be both a physical and/or a mental condition.

Generally, you’ll need to establish that you’re permanently incapable, showing that there are no further treatments or medication available to you that could enable your return to work before the normal pension age.

If that’s the case, you’ll be eligible for ill-health retirement.

Unlike our other most Googled questions, the question of how much to save for retirement is left up to you. How much money do you think you’ll need to be comfortable?

The short answer, for the 1,900 people who Googled this question over the past 12 months, is as much money as you can.

Generally speaking, the more time you have to save for retirement, the less you need to save each month. But it’s highly recommended that you also put some money aside into savings or your pensions regardless of how close you are to retirement.

Another variable is whether you save or invest. If you invest, your money will generally grow with inflation, whereas if you save your money, the purchasing power of the saved amount each year would actually be reduced by the inflation rate.

In laymen’s terms, you may find you have more money in retirement if it’s invested. Either way, it’s a good idea to start saving or investing as soon as possible.

This is a very broad topic but one that’s important to answer for the 1,700 people searching for it in the last year.

Basically, once you’ve retired, you can literally do anything!

Ok, maybe not everything - life insurance might be hard to come by if you want to take up deep-sea diving when you finish work, but the point remains the same. With your savings in hand, you can do more or less whatever you want.

Many people like to travel, go on cruises, join local clubs, stay fit, learn new hobbies, and volunteer in local stores.

If you want to do something in retirement, then you should do it. After all, if you don’t do it after retirement, then when will you?

As we pointed out in our answer to the question on what to do in retirement, you can work as long as you want.

For the 1,100 people interested, there is no age you must retire anymore, so if you want to work a thirty-hour week at the local charity shop, then you can.

Please note, the data displayed in this article is correct at the point of publication 22/03/22

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dwp-benefits-statistics-february-2022

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/bulletins/nationallifetablesunitedkingdom/2018to2020

https://www.gov.uk/working-retirement-pension-age

Google search data on the most asked questions concerning retirement taken from Ahrefs ‘Keyword Planning’ function. Data is based on the monthly search volume, per question, from the last 12 months and is correct as of 24/02/22