Who doesn’t like the idea of early retirement? Well, some roles could allow you to retire nearly 20 years earlier than the current state pension age!
Let’s explore the different jobs and industries that give you the best chance of retiring early.
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What are the best industries for early retirement?
The experts over at Our Life Plan have conducted a study to find out which careers give you the best chance of retiring early.
Their research looked at a combination of different metrics to determine how your job and the industry you work in could affect your retirement age. So without further ado, here are the top ten industries along with the age at which you could potentially retire:
- Commercial manager – 46
- Taxation expert – 46
- Construction manager – 46
- Product manager – 46
- IT manager – 47
- Project manager – 47
- Marketing manager – 47
- Financial analyst – 48
- Electrician – 48
- Programmer analyst – 48
How are the early retirement ages calculated?
When calculating these figures, certain factors were taken into account. For each role and industry, the research looked at:
- Years of training or qualification needed
- Potential salary increases at different stages of your career
- Possible savings you could have in your pension pot
You might notice that certain ‘classic’ career paths didn’t make it into the top ten. This is mostly because highly-qualified careers, such as doctor, psychologist, and architect, require several years of training before you can enter the workforce.
With these careers, you’d likely be on a decent salary and see good career progression. But the knock-on effect means that you could be working longer. When it comes to pensions, savings and investing, time can be the most important factor leading to your retirement success.
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What can increase my chance of early retirement?
No matter what your job or industry, there are some easy steps you can take to boost your chances of retiring early:
- Pay into your pension as early as possible and with as much as you’re able to
- Make use of any tax-efficient accounts like ISAs
- Be consistent with your saving and investing
- Try and avoid debt where possible
- Aim to pay your mortgage off as soon as you can
Ian Wright from Our Life Plan explains further about the importance of pension contributions: “Saving for your pension is often not at the forefront of many people’s minds, particularly at the very beginning of your career.
“Employer contributions to your pension generally sit at 3% meaning that you’ll need to think about saving a lot outside of this for a comfortable retirement.”
How do I retire early in the UK?
What’s great about the jobs listed above is that they do not require any formal qualifications. So you can get into one of these roles straight after school and begin saving into your pension from the age of 18.
Don’t worry if you’re already working outside one of these jobs. There is still hope for early retirement! You can take control of your own finances and use something like a stocks and shares ISA to invest and build wealth that’s shielded from tax.
If you start saving and investing consistently both inside and outside of your pension, you’ll give yourself a great chance of creating wealth using the power of compound interest.
Do keep in mind that the value of your investments could go up or down and that tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances, which can change in the future.
