The Nucleus Retirement Confidence Index 2024

Daniel Liddicott
Dec 2024 • 3 min read

The Nucleus Retirement Confidence Index 2024

Our survey says…

The Nucleus Retirement Confidence Index 2024 is an annual survey designed to give an overview of how people feel about their preparedness for retirement. Around 4,300 UK adults were surveyed, across all age groups.

This is only the second year that Nucleus have carried out the survey, with 2023 marking the inaugural attempt to gauge the sentiment of UK adults towards their retirement outlook.

The key findings of this survey include:

Low Confidence Levels:

The overall retirement confidence score dropped to 4.6 out of 10. This is down from a score of 6.9 out of 10 from the survey in 2023. Only 34% of respondents feel confident they have sufficient savings to live comfortably in retirement, while 60% expressed doubt about meeting their financial needs.

Saving Challenges:

39% of participants are not contributing to any pension
A fifth of respondents have not saved anything for retirement
Rising costs, such as housing and childcare, are major barriers to saving

Gender and Generational Disparities:

Women remain less confident than men about retirement prospects.
Confidence is highest among 18 – 24 year-olds and declines significantly among those aged 35 – 44

Perceived Income Needs vs. Reality:

Most adults believe they need £20,000-30,000 annually for a comfortable retirement, but this falls far short of the £43,100 estimated by the Pensions & Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) for a “comfortable lifestyle”

Impact of Economic Conditions:

Public confidence has been affected by broader economic uncertainties, including the 2024 Autumn Budget. Over a quarter of respondents reported feeling less confident after its release

Calls for Systemic Change:

The report advocates for enhanced financial education, early savings plans, and systemic reforms to improve retirement preparedness
These findings underscore the urgency of early financial planning and seeking quality advice to secure a stable retirement future

Where do we come in?

Our aim is to give you the confidence that you need to enjoy retirement by planning ahead and helping you to put appropriate provisions in place, giving you the freedom to go ahead and live the lifestyle of your choosing once you ‘hang up your boots’.

As advisers, we are also keen that both parties in a couple are present and engaged in the planning process. This is just one way that we can help to bridge the gender gap, which the Nucleus Retirement Confidence Index unfortunately revealed remains present. This helps to provide the full picture, gives clarity to all involved and enables both members of a couple to educate themselves on the options that they have.

Lastly, we strive to look after families up and down the generations. As mentioned above, the 35 – 44 age group was found to have some of the lowest confidence levels when considering their retirement outlook. At that point in life, retirement may seem (and probably is) some way off. However, the earlier plans are put into place, the longer they have to cultivate and grow into something robust. If your child or grandchild is in this age group and you think that they would benefit from a conversation with us, please do get in touch.

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The Nucleus Retirement Confidence Index 2024 Jemima Thomas2025-01-21T15:50:46+00:00

ISA ISA, Baby

Daniel Liddicott
April 2024 • 2 min read

ISA ISA, Baby

It came to our attention recently, after a number of queries, that there may be some confusion around when an ISA provides interest and when it provides investment returns. If you are unsure or have been wondering about this yourself, then I hope that this short blog is of interest to you (pun intended, of course).

Cash ISAs produce interest. Stocks & Shares ISAs provide investment returns.

Most Cash ISA providers are able to tell you ‘up front’ what your interest rate will be. In contrast to this, the growth rate in a Stocks & Shares ISA is not known at the outset – it’s only by looking back at performance that you know what it has been over a period of time.

All ISAs that are held by our clients on the Nucleus or Fundment platforms are Stocks & Shares ISAs and, as the name suggests, the funds held within these are invested in stocks/equity. Therefore, these provide investment returns, unlike their Cash ISA counterparts.

We have also received some queries about the investment term for ISAs. For Stocks & Shares ISAs, it is essentially however long you are willing to leave the funds invested for. And the longer the better! This way, you give your investments time to recover from all of the expected fluctuations in value that the stock market is subject to, providing the prospect for real growth of your ISA funds over the longer term.

Cash ISAs do often come with a particular term attached and, as a general rule, the longer you are willing to leave your money ‘locked away’ in one of these ISAs, the better the interest rate that you will be able to obtain.

As an example, you might opt to place your funds into a Cash ISA with Nationwide for the fixed term of one year, with the agreement that Nationwide will pay you a certain amount of interest over that time period. The interest that you receive on the one-year fixed term is highly likely to be greater than if you were to opt for an ISA that you can dip in and out of as you please without any restrictions.

If you would like to read a more detailed blog on ISAs, you might find this helpful:

What is an ISA?

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ISA ISA, BabyJemima Thomas2025-01-28T10:04:09+00:00

Nucleus and James Hay

TODAY’S BLOG

NUCLEUS AND JAMES HAY

The world of Financial Services can often seem dull, but many of us that have been around for a little longer than a week are very familiar with the frequent merging of financial services companies. This morning it has been announced that Nucleus have accepted an offer to be acquired by the James Hay Group. Many of our clients have holdings on the Nucleus platform.

Change is unsettling, the reality is that we can never prevent change, we simply must face it. Nucleus is, to be blunt, a rather brilliant company that we have been using for many years. The technology works and the culture which in no small part directly derives from David Ferguson have been a beacon in my sector. One of integrity, innovation, and transparency.

James Hay is a very large financial services company that mainly specialises in pensions. We have always been able to use them for our clients. We review the platforms we use each year and this is based on various criteria from “does it work?” to financial resilience. In truth, it would be improbable that Nucleus remains your platform forever – technology will always evolve.

THE EVOLUTION CONTINUES

On the face of it, this looks like a sensible and good deal, but as always, we will keep things under review. Should we advise something different, we will do so. However, at this stage that would seem highly unlikely. We will watch the usual criteria and hope, as I am sure both firms do, that 1+1=3 where there are improvements and advantages (such as price reductions for clients on either or both).

David Ferguson, the Nucleus CEO who I interviewed for our last edition of Spotlight, says

“Since we launched in 2006 we’ve always put the customer centre stage and while that has made us a little bit different it’s carried us to £17.4 billion in AUA and to a point where the sentiment of our users and our people has never been better. Becoming part of this enlarged group gives us a key role in a much bigger story where we can create a leading independent platform of scale with a high tech, high touch proposition and philosophy. I think the combination of our people’s talents and the size of the opportunity can see us carefully navigate the roadmap to deliver on this collective medium-term goal. I look forward to getting to know our new colleagues and moulding a group culture that is centred on doing the right thing and building a market-defining product that really delivers for advisers and their clients.”

I remain open-minded and aware that change ushers in anxiety. There is nothing significant that has altered but in time we hope for improvements, if these are not forthcoming we shall of course review the platform we are using for you. Please also note that one of the many reasons for selecting Nucleus is that there are no exit penalties. It is my hope that this will simply be nothing more than an advantage.

In the interests of the absence of doubt, I have never directly owned shares in any financial services company. In the beginning advisers were very much part of the Nucleus set-up and it was a requirement for them to have some financial stake in the company as part of its backing. I felt that this was a potential conflict of interest and didn’t buy shares (so I do miss out on this deal). I believe that I was the first or certainly one of the first advisers that Nucleus permitted access without buying shares. I may be wrong on that, but that’s what I understood to be the case.

In summary – I am not concerned, if this changes we will make changes – as you would expect.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

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The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Call – 020 8542 8084

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