How likely am I to reach 80, 90 or 100?

The short answer

A man aged 65 in 2026 has about an even chance of reaching 86, and a woman aged 65 about an even chance of reaching 89. About one man in four reaches 92, and one woman in four 94. About one man in ten reaches 96, and one woman in ten 98.

These figures are for the UK as a whole, from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) projections published on 15 May 2026. They are averages for the population, not a forecast for any one person.

Aged 65 in 2026 means born in 1961, as the ONS counts a generation. Each chance follows that generation year by year, through the death rate the ONS projects for its age in each later year. The same method gives back the ONS’s own published figures.

The chance of reaching each age, from 65

The ticks mark the ages half, one in four and one in ten reach. At each mark, women’s line runs two or three years beyond men’s.

From other starting ages

The chances move only a little with the age someone starts from. A man has about a one in three chance of reaching 90 whether he is 55, 65 or 75 now. For a woman it is a little under one in two.

Each table gives the chance that someone of each age in 2026 reaches each later age, rounded to the nearest whole per cent. The average age reached is the ONS’s cohort life expectancy, explained below, added to the age now.

The average age reached rises with the age someone already is, mostly because reaching 70 or 75 means having come through the risks of the years before. Each row is also a different generation, with its own projected death rates.

The average age reached sits a little below the even-chance age, because it measures something different: the average, not the middle.

Reading the curve for a planning age

A plan that runs to the even-chance age leaves about one chance in two of living beyond it. Each mark on the curve sets out the trade-off in plain numbers. A later planning age means a smaller chance of living beyond the age the plan runs to, and a longer stretch for the money to cover.

• Even chance: the age about half of people reach, 86 for men and 89 for women aged 65 in 2026.
• One in four: the age about a quarter reach, 92 for men and 94 for women.
• One in ten: the age about a tenth reach, 96 for men and 98 for women.

Which mark fits a plan turns on a person’s own health, family history, other income and how they weigh the risk of running short. The curve does not choose it.

Why these ages run later than the headline figures

The ONS publishes two kinds of life expectancy. Period life expectancy uses the death rates of a single year, as if they never changed. Cohort life expectancy uses the death rates projected for each later year of a person’s life. The ONS projects death rates to keep falling, so cohort life expectancy comes out longer.

The ONS describes cohort life expectancy as the more realistic measure of how long a person can expect to live. This guide uses it throughout.

People tend to misjudge their own chances

The Institute for Fiscal Studies compared what people in England expected with the official estimates of the time, in research published on 16 April 2018. People in their fifties underestimated their chance of reaching 75 by around 20 percentage points. Men asked at 65 put their chance of reaching 75 at 65%, when the official estimate was 83%.

In their late seventies and eighties, people overestimated their chance of reaching 95. Men asked at 80 put it at 32%, when the official estimate was 17%. Widows and widowers aged 60 were much more pessimistic than others of their age.

What the figures leave out

These projections rest on an assumption about how fast death rates keep falling, which no one can know in advance.

• Health and circumstances. The figures take account of age and sex only. Health, smoking, family history and income are not part of them.
• Couples. Each chance is for one person. The chance that at least one of a couple reaches an age is higher than either person’s own.
• The assumption about the future. The ONS’s main projection has death rates falling by 1.1% a year in the long term, at ages up to 90, and less at older ages. Its high variant assumes 1.9% and its low variant 0.5%. This guide uses the main projection.
• What the variants change from 65. A man aged 65 has between a 31% and a 36% chance of reaching 90 under the variants, against 34% in the main projection. For a woman it is between 44% and 49%, against 46%. The age half reach moves by a year at most.
• What the variants change at birth. For babies born in 2024, cohort life expectancy is 86.9 for boys, or between 83.5 and 91.2 under the variants, and 90.2 for girls, or between 87.1 and 94.
• Where in the UK. Cohort life expectancy at birth in 2024 is highest in England, at 87.1 for boys and 90.4 for girls, and lowest in Scotland, at 85.3 and 88.6. Wales’s is 86.3 and 89.7, and Northern Ireland’s 86.5 and 89.9.
• Ages beyond 100. The ONS’s published tables of survivors by age stop at 100, and it describes expectations of life at the oldest ages as highly uncertain.

The ONS produces these tables every two years. It describes its 2024-based cohort life expectancy projections as very similar to the ones they replace.

This guide informs. It explains official statistics and does not say which age a plan runs to. That turns on a person’s own health, circumstances and plans, which these averages cannot capture. MoneyHelper gives free, impartial guidance, and a regulated financial adviser can advise on your own case.

What the money has to cover

How Landfall handles it

In Landfall, each person’s plan runs to the end of the tax year in which they reach their “Plan to age”: the planning age this guide is about.