UK annuity rates history: rates fell for years as gilt yields dropped and people lived longer, and the yield figures climbed steeply after 2020.
If you have searched for annuity rates in the UK over the last decade or longer, you want to know how far they have moved and why. This page sets out what the published data shows, and what it cannot show. For where rates stand now, see are annuity rates going up.
Pension Wise, from MoneyHelper, is free, impartial and backed by government, and it covers the choices at retirement. To go through your own pot, health and timing with a person, the form on this page sets up a phone call, at no charge, with an FCA-authorised adviser.
What a history of annuity rates can and cannot tell you
Each insurer prices each buyer separately, mixing personal details such as age and health, which MoneyHelper lists, with whatever the market is doing that week. A national "annuity rate" for any past year therefore does not exist in the way a past Bank Rate does.
Nor have we found an official series of annuity rates to quote. The published pieces this page uses are:
- Gilt yields, from the Bank of England, which are a market input to an annuity price.
- The FCA's analysis of what moved annuity rates between 2006 and 2014.
- The FCA's counts of annuities bought since the 2015 pension freedoms.
- Official life expectancy figures from the Office for National Statistics.
The table in the next section is therefore a table of yields, not of annuity rates. The FCA treats the two as linked, which is the subject of the sections after it. How a rate is built from your own details is in the pension annuity guide, and what to compare when you ask for quotes is in best annuity rates in the UK.
Gilt yields over three decades
Gilts are UK government bonds. The Bank of England's database carries a monthly series described as the "Monthly average yield from British Government Securities - 10 year Nominal Par Yield". These are its figures for the September months below, with the series' lowest month added, as published:
| Month | 10-year gilt yield, monthly average (% a year) |
|---|---|
| 30 Sep 1996 | 7.8151 |
| 30 Sep 2006 | 4.5522 |
| 30 Sep 2016 | 0.8243 |
| 31 Jul 2020 (lowest month since the series starts, 31 Dec 1993) | 0.2094 |
| 30 Sep 2022 | 3.5007 |
| 30 Sep 2026 (latest month read, 19 October 2026) | 5.2421 |
Across the series, the yield was far lower in 2016 and 2020 than in 1996 or 2006, and by the latest month read it was above the 2006 figure. For 31 Jan 1995 the series shows 8.7349. A single month is a snapshot, and yields moved month to month inside each span, so the Bank's database is the place to look at the whole line.
Why annuity rates fell after 2008: yields and longevity
The clearest official account of the fall is the FCA's retirement income market study (interim report, December 2014). It singles out two drivers of annuity income, interest rates and the life expectancy insurers assume, and it measures interest rates by gilt yields. It dates the fall in annuity rates to "specifically, since 2008", and puts it down to rising life expectancy together with falling interest rates.
The study then tested each cause separately for a 65-year-old man buying an annuity on the open market in June 2014:
- Had life expectancy been as it was in January 2006, providers would on average have offered "around 7% more income per year."
- Had interest rates been as they were in January 2006, they would on average have offered "around 11% more income per annum."
In pounds, the gaps came to "around £200" and "£300" more annual income. Low interest rates, on that analysis, had weighed on annuity rates more than improved longevity. Yet "money's worth", meaning how much an annuity pays out against what it costs, had stayed "relatively constant over time" even as the rates fell. Annuitants were expected to live longer, so providers had "compensated" by reducing the income offered to new annuitants.
Life expectancy since 2014
The 2014 study's example was a 65-year-old male annuitant with a £10,000 pot, who "could expect to live another 20 years" in 2006 and "another 22 years" in 2014. Those are annuitant figures, not population ones.
The Office for National Statistics' latest national life tables (2022 to 2024, released 10 December 2025) measure the whole population. Life expectancy at birth in the UK, they say, "has remained virtually unchanged for the last 10 years, following sustained increases in the preceding decades." At 65, for 2022 to 2024: "Life expectancy at age 65 years in the UK was 21.2 years for females and 18.7 years for males".
These are period figures, which "do not give a true estimate of how long someone can expect to live on average", because mortality can improve or worsen. They are not an insurer's assumptions either, so they cannot be set beside the FCA's annuitant figures as one series, and they do not show how longevity has fed through to annuity rates since 2014.
What the 2015 pension freedoms changed
The 2014 study called the reforms taking effect from April 2015 "the biggest reform of the retirement system in a generation", giving savers "much greater freedom over how to generate a retirement income". Before then, annuity sales had fallen in 2013 "by 15.3% in value terms, from £11.9bn to £10.1bn", and market research cited in the study expected the market to fall to £6bn and then grow to around £7bn by 2019. That was an estimate made at the time, not an outcome.
The freedoms widened the ways to take a pot, and since April 2015 the FCA has counted the pension plans used to buy an annuity each year. Those counts are a different thing from the rate an annuity pays. Since April 2018 the data has come from all regulated firms rather than a sample, and the FCA advises care when comparing figures from before and after that date, so the table starts in 2019/20:
| Year (April to March) | Annuity purchases, FCA data |
|---|---|
| 2019/20 | 69,500 |
| 2022/23 | 59,163 |
| 2023/24 | 82,061 |
| 2024/25 | 88,430 |
| 2025/26 | 100,144 |
The September 2020 release reported purchases "down 6% to 69,500 in 2019/20"; the 2025/26 release a rise of 13.2% to 100,144 in the year ending 31 March 2026. These counts say how many plans bought an annuity. They do not say why people chose as they did, and they say nothing on their own about the level of rates. For how an annuity compares with leaving money invested, see is an annuity worth it and pension drawdown.
Using the history without being misled by it
A long chart is useful for one thing: seeing that rates are not fixed, and that the market input has swung widely over a working lifetime. It is a poor guide to the offer you will receive, for three reasons.
- The rate you are quoted is personal. Health, age and the features you choose all change it, as enhanced annuity rates and inflation-linked annuity rates explain.
- An older policy may carry its own rate. A guaranteed annuity rate was set when the policy was written, so the market history does not apply to it.
- History does not say when to buy. Age and circumstances also matter, as in the best age to buy an annuity, and past movements are not a guide to the next one.
If you are weighing an annuity against other options at retirement, the questions are about your pot, health, other income and what the money is for. One call with an FCA-authorised adviser can take in all of them, and it costs nothing to ask through the form on this page. More on the choices is in your defined contribution options at retirement.
Annuity rates history: questions people ask
How have annuity rates changed over the last 10 years?
No official annual series of annuity rates is published. The Bank of England's 10-year gilt yield, an input to annuity prices, stood at 0.8243 for 30 Sep 2016 and 5.2421 for 30 Sep 2026 (percent a year). The direction of rates now is covered in are annuity rates going up.
Were annuity rates higher decades ago?
The sources give yields, not rates: 4.5522 for 30 Sep 2006 and 7.8151 for 30 Sep 1996, in percent a year. The FCA ties rates to yields and to life expectancy, so a higher yield tends to raise rates and longer lives tend to lower them.
What made annuity rates fall in the past?
For 2006 to 2014, the FCA's analysis found falling interest rates did more of the damage than longer lives, though both pushed the same way. What moves an offer today is covered in are annuity rates going up.
Is there a historical annuity rates graph or chart for the UK?
The FCA's 2014 study includes a chart titled "Annuity rates (for a 65 year-old male and female), Life expectancy (for a 65 year-old male and female), and Government bond yields (2006-2014)". Gilt yields can be charted from the Bank of England's database. We know of no official chart of annuity rates beyond that.
Are annuity rates likely to fall?
Nobody can know in advance, and this page does not forecast. The drivers it describes can move either way; are annuity rates going up explains where to follow them.
Your next step
The record shows annuity rates shaped by gilt yields and life expectancy, and, since the 2015 pension freedoms, FCA counts of how many plans are used to buy one. The rate that matters is the one quoted to you. Pension Wise offers free guidance first. If you want your own position talked through, ask for it via the form on this page; nobody charges you, and an FCA-authorised adviser rings back.
Sources: FCA, MS14/3.2 Retirement income market study: interim report, December 2014; Bank of England Database, series IUMAMNPY (accessed 19 October 2026); FCA retirement income market data, 2025/26, 2024/25, 2023/24 and 2019/20; ONS, National life tables: life expectancy in the UK, 2022 to 2024; MoneyHelper, annuities explained (archived copy, accessed 19 October 2026).