State Pension explorerIllustrative education and engagement tool for professional audiences only
State Pension · from April 2030
Explore how the triple lock can affect people
From April 2030 the triple lock is to be replaced by an adjusted triple lock. Here is what that could mean for someone on the full new State Pension.
Who this tool is for. A short education and engagement tool for trustees, sponsors and advisers, retirement and consumer advocates, policymakers and public finance audiences. It is not designed to help an individual plan their own retirement.
Triple lock, 2050/51
around £35,000 a year
around £20,000 in today’s prices
Adjusted triple lock, 2050/51
around £33,000 a year
around £19,000 in today’s prices
Choosing the highest of several measures each year creates a ratcheting effect. If inflation and earnings grew at constant rates, the two locks would pay the same. The gap comes from years when they alternate in the lead.
Powered by Hymans’ Economic Scenario Service (ESS)5,000 economic scenarios · September 2026 calibration
These figures are illustrations, not guaranteed, not a forecast, a personal estimate, advice or an official costing. They are typical values across 5,000 projections; how they are built. Important information.
How the two locks work
Triple lock · to April 2029
Rises each April by the highest of earnings growth, CPI inflation or 2.5%.
Adjusted triple lock · from April 2030
Rises by the higher of CPI inflation or 2.5%, and catches up with earnings growth whenever it falls behind.
More detail on the rules
The triple lock raises the basic and full new State Pension each April by the highest of three measures: earnings growth (average weekly earnings for May to July of the previous year), inflation (the Consumer Prices Index, CPI, for the previous September) and 2.5%. The last award under the triple lock is April 2029.
The adjusted triple lock applies from the April 2030 award. The government describes it as raising the pension each year by the highest of CPI, 2.5%, and “the amount required to return or maintain the value of the State Pension relative to earnings”. So the pension rises by at least CPI or 2.5% and never falls behind earnings growth over time, but it no longer takes earnings growth in a year when that is the highest of the three.
We measure “relative to earnings” from the 2029/30 pension: after 2030 the pension never falls below its 2029/30 level grown with earnings since then. The government has not yet said exactly which level it will hold.
Projected impact
Full new State Pension under each lock
Switch between pounds and the adjusted lock as a share of the triple lock. Line: median. Shaded bands: 2 in 3 of projections, and 9 in 10 on the share. Hover for values.
Source: Hymans’ ESS, September 2026 calibration. Years are award years, starting in April.
The adjusted triple lock never pays more than the triple lock. By 2050/51 it pays less in 95% of projections, and the same in the rest.
How to read these results. The headline figures are the median pension under each lock across 5,000 projections, rounded to the nearest £1,000. The gaps quoted in the text use the adjusted lock’s median share of the triple lock, 95%, because the share holds steady across projections and scenarios while pound figures do not. Medians of each pension taken separately do not subtract, so do not read the gap off the headline figures or the chart (detail under Method). Compare scenarios and relationships rather than treating a single figure as a forecast.
Why the gap grows: alternating rates
What £100 of pension becomes under each lock, a worked example
Same average rates, constant or alternating. Made-up rates to show the mechanism, not a projection.
The alternating case exaggerates the swings to make the mechanism visible: its 86% share is well below the 95% projected above.
How this example works
Take £100 of pension in 2026/27. If CPI were 2% and earnings growth 3.5% every year, earnings would set every award under both rules and the two pensions would be the same.
Now keep the same averages but let the measures alternate: one year CPI is 3.5% and earnings 2%, the next CPI is 0.5% and earnings 5%. The triple lock takes the higher figure every year, 3.5% then 5%. From 2030 the adjusted triple lock takes 3.5% in the first year, and in the second rises only as far as it needs to stay in line with earnings since 2029/30. Over each pair of years it keeps pace with earnings, while the triple lock pulls ahead. By 2050/51 every £100 has become £271 under the triple lock and £235 under the adjusted triple lock.
Real inflation and earnings do not alternate neatly, but they do move around from year to year. How much the adjusted triple lock pays below the triple lock depends on how often, and by how much, the leading rate alternates.
Inflation and earnings assumptions
What inflation and earnings assumptions inform our projections for the individual State Pension? The worked example shows how much year-to-year variation in inflation and earnings growth matters for the impact of the uprating locks. The ESS projections are informed by current market conditions in the short run, blending into our long-term assumptions over the projection. Earnings growth typically runs above inflation, by about 1% a year, but the bands overlap and either can lead in a given year. Median inflation sits above the Bank of England’s 2% target through the 2030s, at 2.4% to 2.8%, reflecting current market pricing, and eases towards 2% by 2050/51.
Projected CPI inflation and earnings growth
Line: median. Shaded bands: 2 in 3 and 9 in 10 of projections. Dotted line: the 2.5% floor.
Source: Hymans’ ESS, September 2026 calibration. Earnings growth assumes real earnings growth of 1% a year on average; see method below.
Why our figures may differ from others
Figures quoted elsewhere usually start from a single central path for inflation and earnings, or from a few paths with each year drawn afresh. Under a single steady path the two locks pay the same, so any gap depends entirely on how the rates are assumed to move about. Three features of the ESS matter here.
Persistence. In the ESS a spell of high or low inflation lasts for several years rather than returning to target at once. Long spells in one regime mean fewer changes of lead, and a smaller gap than independent year-to-year draws of the same size would give. In our testing this is the largest single difference from a simple simulation.
Inflation and earnings move together. Earnings growth is built on inflation, so when inflation is high earnings growth is usually high too. Earnings then beat the inflation-or-2.5% measure less often and by less, which also narrows the gap.
Current market conditions. The calibration is anchored to market prices for inflation and interest rates at September 2026, so median inflation sits above target in the 2030s and the spread of outcomes reflects today’s uncertainty rather than a long-run average. A later calibration will move these figures.
The impact of growth
The gap between the two locks depends on how the UK economy performs. For example, with strong real earnings growth of 2.2% a year coupled with relatively low inflation of 0.8%, the adjusted triple lock pension is typically 94.8% of the triple lock pension by 2050/51, 0.6 percentage points less than under our central assumptions (95.4%).
The figures below show how the projected savings change when we reweight the ESS projections to target average inflation from 2030 to 2050 of about 0.8% or 4.2% a year, and real earnings growth of about -0.2% or 2.2%.
Adjusted triple lock pension as a share of the triple lock pension
Choose a scenario. Line: median. Shaded bands: 2 in 3 and 9 in 10 of projections. Dashed line: the central median, for comparison.
Source: Hymans’ ESS, September 2026 calibration, reweighted.
In the scenarios we consider, the adjusted triple lock pays 2% to 5% less by 2050/51 in these projections: £599 to £1,663 a year.
The gap is widest where earnings growth sits close to inflation or to the 2.5% floor, so that the leading rate alternates often, and narrowest where one measure leads throughout. Choose a scenario above for the reason in each case.
How these scenarios are built
The central view gives all 5,000 ESS projections equal weight: inflation averages 2.5% a year from 2030 to 2050 and real earnings growth (earnings growth above inflation) 1.0%.
Each of the scenarios gives more weight to some projections and less to others, changing them as little as possible, so that average inflation sits at a level only one in six ESS projections fall below, or one in six rise above, and likewise for real earnings growth. A scenario is centred on those averages, not limited to them: individual projections still range widely around them. It is an alternative view of the same projections, not a forecast that it will happen.
How volatility passes through
The more inflation and earnings growth move about from year to year, the more often the leading rate alternates and the more the triple lock pulls ahead. Move the slider to reweight towards calmer or more volatile projections, with average inflation and earnings growth held where they are in the central view.
Year-to-year movement in inflation and earnings, and what it does to the pension
Move the slider. The axes stay fixed, so only the bands move. Dashed line: the central median.
Source: Hymans’ ESS, September 2026 calibration, reweighted.
By 2050/51 the adjusted triple lock pays, in these projections, £1,226 a year less in the calmer view and £1,753 in the more volatile one, against £1,610 in the central view.
How calmer and more volatile are defined
Volatility here is how far each year’s rate is from that projection’s own average, from 2030 to 2050 (the standard deviation). In the central view it is 2.2% for inflation and 1.7% for real earnings growth. The calmer view reweights the projections so both sit at a level only one in six ESS projections are calmer than (1.6% and 1.4%), and the more volatile view at a level only one in six are more volatile than (2.7% and 2.0%).
Average inflation and real earnings growth are held at their central values. Without that, the more volatile view would also have slightly higher inflation, because in the ESS the two tend to go together.
About this tool
Who this tool is for
As stated at the top of the page: a short education and engagement tool about the future of the State Pension, exploring the relationship between retirement income, the triple lock and the adjusted triple lock that is to replace it. It is written for:
Retirement and consumer advocates Trustees, sponsors and advisers Policymakers and public finance audiences
Method
Economic projections. Inflation and earnings growth come from 5,000 projections in Hymans’ Economic Scenario Service (ESS), September 2026 calibration. The ESS is the firm’s model of how the economy and markets could develop, used in advice to pension schemes. Inflation is the ESS’s CPI.
Earnings growth is CPI plus real earnings growth, which we assume averages 1% a year. How much it moves about from year to year, and how it moves with inflation, come from the ESS.
Pension rules. Both locks are applied to each projection from the 2026/27 full new State Pension of £12,548 a year. The April 2027 award uses published figures: CPI of 3.3% (the latest, to August 2026) and earnings growth of 3.9% (May to July 2026). After that, each projected year’s CPI and earnings growth set the next April award. The triple lock applies to awards up to April 2029; from April 2030 the adjusted triple lock pays the greater of last year’s pension grown by CPI or 2.5%, and the 2029/30 pension grown with earnings since.
Today’s prices. Each projection’s pension is deflated by its own CPI path back to 2026/27 prices.
Headline figures. The headline tiles show the median pension under each lock across projections (the chart’s end points), rounded to the nearest £1,000. The gaps quoted in the text are the median triple lock pension times the median of the adjusted lock’s share of the triple lock, worked out projection by projection. The same construction is used for each scenario and for today’s prices, where the share is the same because both pensions are deflated by the same path. Medians of different quantities come from different projections, so they do not subtract: the two headline medians are £35,079 and £32,572, £2,507 apart, the median of the gaps worked out projection by projection is £1,688, and the share basis gives £1,610.
Scenarios. The central view weights every projection equally. The other views reweight the same projections (maximum entropy, the least change to equal weights that meets the target) so that average inflation, average real earnings growth or their volatility over the awards from April 2030 to April 2050 sits at a 1-in-6 low or high: the level only one in six ESS projections fall below, or rise above. Percentiles in each view are weighted. Reweighting concentrates on fewer projections: each view is as informative as 618 to 1,119 equally weighted ones.
Only percentiles of the results are shown.
Limitations
This is an individual full new State Pension, not the whole State Pension population or its cost. There is no mortality, State Pension age, contribution record or partial entitlement; no tax or benefit interactions; no rounding of awards. Results are conditional projections, not forecasts.
Sources, reviewed to 16 October 2026
- Department for Work and Pensions (2026). State Pension uprating and Triple Lock reform factsheet. Published 29 September 2026, updated 6 October 2026.
- House of Commons Library (2023). State Pension triple lock, CBP-7812.
- Office for National Statistics. CPI annual rate (D7G7) and average weekly earnings (KAC3).