The UK will need to increase its state pension age to 71 by 2050 to maintain the number of workers per retiree, the International Longevity Centre has warned.

Currently, the state pension age stands at 66, but will increase to 67 between May 2026 and March 2028. It is expected that from 2044 it will rise again to 68, but the report warned that “longer term, the pressure will be on to increase it to 68 or 69 before that”.

A LinkedIn poll by People Management found 90 per cent of respondents were concerned by the suggestions.

Emily Andrews, deputy director for work at the Centre for Ageing Better, told People Management: “No one should be seriously considering increasing the state pension age to 71 until it is much easier for people in their 60s to get and keep a decent job.”

A rising number of people are being pushed out of the workforce in their 50s and 60s because of ill health, caring responsibility or redundancy. When people over the age of 50 fall out of work, she said, “it is a real struggle to get back in”.

“The majority of people are not working in their mid-60s, even though the state pension age is now 66,” Andrews continued. “So for people who don’t have good private pensions savings to fall back on, raising the state pension age just means extending their years of financial struggle.”

Research conducted by the Centre for Ageing Better alongside the IFS showed that raising the pension age from 65 to 66 led to a doubling of the poverty rate among 65 year olds.

She said: “In the coming decades, more people are likely to be in financial precariousness as they approach retirement – and yet those in the worst financial position will be those who also face additional barriers to accessing employment, such as a long-term health condition or a caring responsibility.

“Before we consider any further raises in the state pension age, we need a labour market that is fit for purpose for older workers.”

Andrews called for more high-quality, accessible, flexible work throughout the economy, including well-paid part-time jobs, greater career progression opportunities for the over 50s and more access to adjustments in the workplace.

“We need more employers that recognise the value of older workers,” she said.

Research by PensionBee also found that half (48 per cent) of UK savers believe they will not be able to retire before the state pension age if it is raised to 68.

Becky O’Connor, director of public affairs at PensionBee, said the “dramatic” increase in state pension age from 66 to 71 is an “alarming prospect” and risked making workers “distrustful”, causing “worry and anxiety about their future”.

“While the sustainability of the state pension needs to be properly examined, increasing the age people get it may not turn out to be the cost saving a government would hope for,” she said.

Catherine Foot, director of Phoenix Group’s longevity think tank Phoenix Insights, explained to People Management that many workers who fall out of work years before reaching state pension age – because of factors such as ill health or disability – are “often disproportionately lower earners”.

Research by the firm found that over 50s who leave work as a result of ill health have just 5 per cent of the wealth compared to those who retire by choice.

“Increasing the state pension age will mitigate some of the funding challenges, but delaying access to state pension payments alongside the under-saving crisis creates a perfect storm for worsening pre-retirement poverty,” Foot continued.

“We need to take a step back and look at the role the state pension plays alongside other policies such as auto-enrolment and working-age benefits to develop a system that genuinely addresses the realities of inequalities in work, health and savings.”

This, she said, requires a “radical change [in] the way that we think about working in later life, enabling and supporting people to continue in work until their late 60s if they want to or need to”.

Separate research by Resource Solutions found that Gen Z employees were the most concerned about their retirement of any generation in the workforce, according to a national survey of 2,000 working adults.

Despite being furthest away from retirement age, 72 per cent of Gen Z workers said they were worried they may not be able to stop working at the state pension age because of financial hardship – followed by millennials at 70 per cent.

Kristen Buckheit, managing director for EMEA at Resource Solutions, said: “2024 is set to be an important one for pensions, with state pensions increasing by 8.5 per cent from April among other changes – but it’s unclear whether this alone will be enough to alleviate feelings of anxiety around retirement currently being felt across all spectres of society.”

She added that “the great unretirement”, which last year saw older generations returning to the workforce amid the cost of living-crisis, “is unlikely to draw to a close this year”.

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