Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Flexible retirement definition

What does Flexible retirement mean? Flexible retirement describes an arrangement where an employee continues working (often with reduced hours or grade) while drawing some or all pension from the same employer’s scheme. It is not defined in legislation; the term appears in scheme rules and public sector regulations (for example, the Local Government Pension Scheme) and in employer policies. Across England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland: - Defined contribution: since the 2015 pension freedoms, members can access benefits from age 55 (57 from April 2028) via flexi‑access drawdown or UFPLS without retiring; this may trigger the Money Purchase Annual Allowance. - Defined benefit: many schemes allow...

Flexible retirement in registered occupational pension schemes: age discrimination, in-service pensions, accrual beyond 65, default retirement age repeal, life cover, auto-enrolment and transitional protections

Published by a LexisNexis Pensions expert

Practice notes

This practice note chiefly concerns registered occupational pension schemes

One outcome of recent pensions legislation reforms, including the introduction of anti‑age discrimination legislation (for further information, see Practice Note: Age discrimination for pension lawyers), has been to permit a new and wider flexibility in how members of registered pension schemes can accrue benefits and ultimately receive them from such arrangements. In particular, the past few years have witnessed the rise of the concept of ‘flexible retirement’ as a recognised approach.

Concept of flexible retirement

Broadly, flexible retirement captures the ability of members to:

begin taking benefits from registered pension schemes whilst remaining in active service with the sponsoring employer of their pension arrangements; and
continue to build up benefits, if they so choose, after normal pension date (typically age 65) and in ways that comply with the age discrimination legislation

Legislative framework

Since A‑Day (on 6 April 2006), registered pension schemes have not been required to retain a normal retirement date. Instead, the Finance Act 2004 (FA 2004) refers to a ‘normal minimum pension age’, which must be reached before certain authorised member payments can be made, aligning scheme practice with the age discrimination legislation...

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Wyn Derbyshire

gunnercooke LLP

Wyn is a partner at gunnercooke LLP and specialises in pensions, trust and employment law in all industry sectors, dealing with the transactional, advisory and documentation aspects.He also has wide experience of the pensions implications of heavyweight corporate transactions and flotations, the issues arising from the establishment and merger of pension schemes, and sex equalisation and other discrimination issues in respect of benefits provided by pension schemes. In addition, he provides advice to pension scheme trustees generally.Recent transactions include advising Amcor on pension matters relating to the acquisition of Alcan business and the acquisition of Northern Foods PLC by Boparan Holdings.He is a co-author (with Stephen Hardy and Stephen Maffey) of TUPE: Law and Practice, published by Spiramus Press (now in its 4th edition), and co-author (with Stephen Hardy and David Wicks) of Money & Work, published by Spiramus Press in August 2007. He has also...

Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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