Thinking of staying in work past the official retirement age?

Then join the generation steadily pushing back the age of retirement. The employment rate for those between 50 and 64 reached a record high point of 71.2pc this summer.

This is only a smidge below the national employment rate across all ages of 75.3pc, itself a record high point.

To put this in perspective, in January 1993, just 55.5% of those aged between 50 and 64 were in employment.

For those aged over 65, the employment rate has doubled from 5% in July 1997 to 10% today.

According to the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, some 195,000 more 50-64 year olds are employed compared to this time last year, as the “Baby Boomer” bubble works its way through the system.

Reasons behind the continuing shift upwards in the numbers of older workers include better health and the willingness of employers to accommodate those over State Pension Age in the workplace by offering sorter hours or less onerous roles, following the demise of the Default Retirement Age.

Equally, many older people are electing to go down the self-employment route in order to continue earning an income.

But for many, it’s less a choice and more a matter of financial necessity.

So how can you decide when you can afford to retire?

If you’re pondering when you can give up the nine to five, the simple route is to play put some different scenarios into your RetireEasy LifePlan.

Using either the Classic or Premium versions you can test out as many scenarios as you wish – inputting different retirement ages, together with the variations in the money you will be saving – to see what impact it will have on your future retirement incomes.