Average retirement age by occupation

Release date:
28 January 2019

You asked

Please provide average retirement age data for each occupation listed in the SOC coding index.

We would like this data by occupation title, rather than occupation code, as some codes cover multiple occupations.

We said

Thank you for your request.

Statistics relating to the average age of retirement used to be published in ONS Pension Trends, Chapter 4. However, this publication is no longer produced; the last edition was published in February 2013, and can be found here:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pensions/pension-trends/chapter-4--the-labour-market-and-retirement--2013-edition/index.html

Statistics relating to the average age of retirement can be obtained from the Annual Population Survey (APS) and the Labour Force Survey (LFS). We provide a bespoke service for analysis that is not already published on our website. Special extracts and tabulations of data are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries should be made to the customer services team of ONS's Social Surveys Division (socialsurveys@ons.gov.uk). As this information is already available to you via this route, we consider that s.21(1) applies to this request and the information does not have to be supplied under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. S.21(1) is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.

Another route would be to access the anonymised LFS and APS datasets at the UK Data Service if you are able to run your own analysis. Details of how to access the data can be found here: http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access.aspx. Data can be downloaded free of charge for non-commercial purposes but if charges are applicable, you will be notified during the ordering process. Further details are available at the following links:

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