Preparing for the Future Study

A study of people aged 40 to 75, asking questions about expectations and plans, including your plans for working later in life and retirement.

About the study

Preparing for the Future is a study of people aged 40 to 75. The questions in the survey cover a range of topics, including:

What people want and need from work as they get older
How people plan for their retirement
People’s expectations about their pensions or other savings in retirement
Where people go for advice and guidance on retirement planning
What further advice and guidance people would find valuable to help them plan more effectively for retirement

The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) are conducting this study for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The National Centre for Social Research carried out a similar study for DWP in 2020-21 and are interested in finding out how people’s views and experiences may have changed since then.

Findings from the previous study have influenced crucial areas of DWP policy making across later life, labour market, and pensions policy areas, including:

The State Pension Age (SPa) review
Private pension reforms
The workforce participation review (on the role of pensions on economic inactivity)

You can see findings from the previous study here:

Planning and Preparing for Later Life | National Centre for Social Research (natcen.ac.uk)

Frequently Asked Questions

Why take part?

The study explores important topics that affect an increasing number of people in our ageing society. It will help policy makers across government to answer questions such as:

How do people plan for their retirement?
How well informed are people about the pension choices available to them?
What do people want from work later in life?
How can the government further aid people in their retirement planning?

We know your time is precious, but our work really does make a difference. The time you take to share your thoughts and opinions allows us to help government to make the right decisions about big issues in later life.

What does taking part involve?

All it takes to participate is to simply complete a short survey and in return we will send you a high street voucher to say thank you

You can complete the survey online or over the telephone.

The survey will ask you about a range of topics around your expectations and plans for the future. But don’t worry – taking part is voluntary and you don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to; you can just skip on to the next question.

We don’t ask you to have any special knowledge to take part – the questions are all about you and your experiences.

If you have a private pension, you may find it helpful to have your pension statement(s) to hand when completing the survey. But don’t worry if you don’t have these – or if you don’t have a pension – we still want to hear from you.

We treat the information you give us in the strictest confidence under the General Data Protection Regulation. The results collected here are used for research purposes only. You will never receive any junk mail as a result of competing our survey, and we never pass on your details to other organisations for commercial purposes.

Why have I been selected to take part?

We have invited a specially selected sample of people aged 40 to 75 to complete the study. You have been recruited to the study after completing the Family Resources Survey between April 2022 and September 2023 and giving consent to be contacted for further research.

It is important that we hear from a wide range of people whatever their experiences of or expectations for retirement. We want to hear from people who are retired, people who have not yet started thinking about their retirement and everyone in between.

See the study privacy notice for further information on how we obtained your contact details.

Who is carrying out the research?

The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) are conducting this study for the Department for Work and Pensions.

NatCen is Britain’s largest independent research organisation studying social affairs. We carry out many important national research studies for Government departments, research councils and charitable foundations.

NatCen are working in collaboration with WPI Economics, the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) and Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) on the design and analysis of the findings of this study.

For further information on any of the organisations mentioned above, visit NatCen, WPI Economics, IES, or PPI.