Teachers' pension age is 60 or 65 for final salary benefits and State Pension age for career average, with payment possible from 55.

There is no single Teachers' Pension age: the one that applies depends on which part of the scheme your benefits sit in and, for final salary benefits, when you joined. Teachers' Pensions is the scheme's own source, and MoneyHelper and Pension Wise offer free guidance too. Your joining date and breaks decide your age; for a free phone chat about them with an FCA-authorised adviser, you will find the form on this page.

What age can you claim a Teachers' Pension?

Teachers' Pensions says the Normal Pension Age (NPA) "depends on which scheme your benefits are in". For the scheme in England and Wales that gives three answers:

Your benefitsNormal Pension Age
Final salary, in service before 1 January 2007 and no disqualifying event60
Final salary, joined on or after 1 January 2007 (or entered after a break)65
Career averageState Pension age or 65, whichever is later

Normal Pension Age is when benefits are paid without an early-payment reduction. It is not the earliest age you can claim. For most members the earliest is 55, covered further down this page.

The final salary scheme has closed. The Department for Education's July 2023 consultation response on the McCloud remedy says it "closed to further accrual by any members on 31 March 2022", and every active member is now in career average. A teacher still working builds new benefits in career average, but may be carrying older final salary benefits with an earlier age attached.

Teachers' pension retirement age at 60: who qualifies for it

Final salary benefits carry a Normal Pension Age of 60 if you were in service before 1 January 2007. That age is lost if any one of these applies to you:

  • a refund of your contributions has been paid;
  • your service was moved out to another scheme; or
  • you spent over five years out of service in a break that ended after 31 December 2007.

Any of those turns the final salary age into 65, so an early joiner who took a refund and came back can find a different age on their record from a colleague's. If you are asking whether you can take your Teachers' Pension at 60, a qualifying member's final salary benefits are payable in full from that age, with no reduction for early payment. The lump sum that goes with them is covered in the page on the Teachers' Pension lump sum.

Whether you have a pension at all turns on how long you have to work to qualify.

Teachers' pension at 65, and the State Pension age link

Joining pensionable service on or after 1 January 2007, or entering again after a break, puts final salary benefits at 65. Career average benefits are different: their age is tied to State Pension age, or 65 if that is later. On GOV.UK, State Pension age is the point from which you can start receiving your State Pension, and it "may be different to the age you can get a workplace or personal pension". The same page says it is regularly reviewed, so your career average age can move with it, and its checker gives the age for your own date of birth. Under GOV.UK's published timetable, State Pension age "will now increase to 67 between 2026 and 2028", and under the Pensions Act 2007 it rises from 67 to 68 between 2044 and 2046, a step that could change after a future review. Our guide to the UK State Pension covers how that pension is paid.

If you have both final salary and career average benefits

Many mid-career teachers hold both. With a foot in each scheme, the final salary part stays final salary: Teachers' Pensions works it out on retirement using the salaries you earned in career average, an arrangement it calls the final salary link. Step out of pensionable work for over five years and that link goes.

The two parts can have different ages, which matters on the day you claim. Provided you are out of service, you can take your career average benefits along with your final salary benefits, but the career average part "will be reduced because they are being paid before your NPA in that arrangement". If you would rather wait, you can leave those benefits until your career average Normal Pension Age, when they are paid in full. Going the other way, any unclaimed final salary benefits must be taken when you claim career average.

Claiming the final salary part first and the career average part later is hard to reverse, so it helps to set both against your State Pension and tax with an adviser who phones once your details have gone through the enquiry form.

How the McCloud remedy affects which age applies

Eligible members have a choice about whether service between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022 counts in the legacy scheme or the reformed one. The Department for Education's response says the decision is made "at the point of retirement" and that the choice is "for all of their remediable service to be in the legacy scheme or the reformed scheme – it cannot be a combination of the two". Final salary and career average carry the different ages set out above. Our page on the McCloud remedy for Teachers' Pensions explains the statement you receive and the process.

On 1 October 2023 that service was moved back into the legacy scheme, and the response says affected members are treated as having built their remedy-period benefits there, so those years carry a final salary age of 60 or 65 unless you choose the reformed scheme when you retire.

Taking a Teachers' Pension at 55, or 57 from 2028

The earliest the scheme can pay a pension is 55, unless you are granted ill health benefits. Teachers' Pensions says the minimum pension age "is changing from 6 April 2028, when it will rise from age 55 to 57". It adds that members with service in the scheme up to 3 November 2021 keep the right to take early or phased retirement from 55, subject to an application and the relevant conditions, while "members who joined the career average scheme for the first time after 3 November 2021, will have a Normal Minimum Pension Age of 57". The same page adds that some policy points are still being settled, and the Department for Education has promised an update.

Going before your Normal Pension Age means leaving service and accepting an actuarial reduction, set by age and section. Still working in the scheme? Your employer has to agree to you leaving before the pension can be paid. The size of the cut, strain costs and the application are in taking a Teachers' Pension early, and health grounds are in ill-health retirement. Phased retirement lets you draw part of the pension while working less; Teachers' Pensions says you must be between 55 and 75 to claim it.

A reduced pension from 55, or waiting for more, is a trade-off worth setting out with an adviser on a free call, arranged through the form here.

Waiting beyond your normal pension age

Teachers' Pensions says that once you reach your NPA and are out of service, you should claim your benefits. If you keep working in pensionable service, they are paid from your last day of that service, and if you delay the claim after leaving, benefits are backdated to your last day of service or to your NPA, whichever is the later. Backdated payments arrive as a lump sum and are subject to tax.

Abatement can bite when you go on working. It applies where you enter or stay in pensionable employment after your final salary entitlement starts, and the pension is reduced if your earnings from that job exceed your salary of reference. It affects the annual pension only, not a lump sum. A teacher who has opted out and reaches their NPA while still in pensionable employment can apply for the final salary pension as an age retirement award, though abatement then applies.

The page on how the Teachers' Pension Scheme works sets out the scheme's basics, and whether the Teachers' Pension is good weighs what it offers.

Scotland: separate ages under the SPPA

Scotland has its own teachers' schemes, run by the Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA), and everything above describes England and Wales. The SPPA gives a normal pension age of 60 for Teachers' Superannuation Scheme members "who joined before 1 April 2007 and didn’t have a break where you were out of the scheme for more than 5 years before 31 March 2008", and 65 for those "who joined after 1 April 2007 or who had a 5 year break in service". Its table lists State Pension Age for the Teachers' Pension Scheme 2015. Its page also puts the earliest date for benefits at the minimum pension age, with the rise from 55 to 57 coming on 6 April 2028. A Scottish teacher should check their own scheme with the SPPA, and how the Scottish position differs has its own page.

Pension age queries that teachers raise

I joined in 2009. Is my age 65?

For final salary benefits, yes: entering pensionable service on or after 1 January 2007 gives a final salary NPA of 65. Any career average benefits you have built since then follow State Pension age or 65, whichever is later.

I was born in 1962. When is my career average pension paid in full?

At 67. GOV.UK's State Pension age timetable gives 67 for anyone born between 6 March 1961 and 5 April 1977, and the career average age follows State Pension age wherever that is above 65. Any final salary benefits keep their own age of 60 or 65.

Can I retire at 55 on a full pension?

Not on a full one. Taking benefits before NPA means they are adjusted to reflect early payment. See the page on going early for the detail.

Will the Teachers' Pension age change?

The minimum age goes up from 55 to 57 on 6 April 2028, though members with service up to 3 November 2021 keep the right to early or phased retirement from 55. The career average age moves only if State Pension age does, and GOV.UK says that age is regularly reviewed.

How do I work out which Normal Pension Age is mine?

Sort your service into final salary and career average, then match each part to the table at the top of this page. For the career average part, the GOV.UK State Pension age checker gives the age for your own date of birth.

Sources