Retirement Age – Born in April 1954

Last updated on January 23rd, 2022

If you were born in April 1954 and are able to claim a state pension in the UK then you may be finding it pretty tricky to work out your retirement age – or at least the age at which you can draw your state pension.

Lots of changes to the state pension age have been made in recent years and you are in a batch of people who have been affected quite a bit by the changes.

In fact your retirement date will differ depending on when in the month you were born, as the retirement ages are split as follows:

If you were born between 6 March and 5 April 1954 – your retirement date is 6 September 2019.
If you were born between 6 April and 5 May 1954 – your retirement date is 6 November 2019.

So you are not retiring at a specific age, rather on a specific date and this date applies to both men and women.

Comparing someone who was born on 5th April to someone who was born on 6th April 1954, you will see that the person born on the 6th will miss out on 2 months worth of pension compared to the person born one day earlier.

This is a period of rapid changes in retirement ages and indeed a transition in the retirement age from 65 to 66. There are subsequently further changes that increase the retirement age to 67.

You can find out how much you are due to get from your state pension by following the instructions here. You must remember also that you need to claim your pension, it will not be paid automatically. You should be sent a form around 3 months before the date you are due to retire and you should complete and return that form.