Triple lock alternatives: will the government reform the state pension?
The government has promised not to touch the state pension triple lock this Parliament, but rising costs mean reform could be inevitable eventually
If there’s one government policy that sets the cat among the pigeons, it’s the triple lock.
The mechanism, which uprates the UK state pension each year by whichever is highest out of inflation, wage growth or 2.5%, came into effect in April 2011.
But, the policy’s viability has been called into question in recent years as the UK population ages and the cost of funding the state pension grows.
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Tom Selby, director of public policy at AJ Bell, said: “A significant section of the public support the triple lock, particularly older voters, and any party indicating it will not pledge allegiance to the policy risks being annihilated at the general election.”
How likely is a change to the triple lock?
The government has promised not to change the triple lock this Parliament, but its future looks less certain beyond then.
In July 2025, chancellor Rachel Reeves launched the next phase of the government’s pensions review. This included reviving the Pensions Commission to tackle a savings crisis that is set to leave pensioners in 2050 worse off than today’s retirees. In August, the government launched a review of the state pension age, which will explore whether it should automatically increase in line with rising life expectancy, potentially pushing the state pension age up to 70. So far, nothing is on the table in regards to the triple lock.
“For millions of pensioners, the state pension is the bedrock of their retirement income,” said Damon Hopkins, head of DC workplace savings at consultancy Broadstone.
“Any changes to the triple lock, an acceleration of state pension age [increases], or moves towards means-testing would be highly controversial.”
Possible state pension reforms
The political danger of tinkering with the triple lock hasn’t stopped various think tanks and working groups from weighing in with their suggestions.
In May 2026, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change proposed scrapping the current state pension and replacing it with a ‘Lifespan Fund’. Under the proposed change, the triple lock would be ditched and individuals’ payments would be uprated annually in line with average earnings.
By the think tank’s calculations, the Lifespan Fund would cost just 5.31% as a share of GDP by 2073/74 versus 7.65% under the current state pension system.
In September 2025, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) suggested an inflation-linked state pension should be introduced. By 2023/24, the state pension was £300 a year higher than it would have been under the Tony Blair-era inflation/earnings link, and £800 a year higher than under a simple inflation uprating, according to the IEA’s calculations. Considering 13 million pensioners receive the state pension, uprating by inflation would save the government a lot of money.
But as Len Shackleton, editorial and research fellow at the IEA acknowledged, “whether any party has the bottle to go down that route, given the size of the pensioner vote, looks doubtful”.
In July 2025, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) suggested that a better approach to the triple lock would be to uprate the state pension in line with a “smoothed earnings link”, similar to the system used in Australia.
This would see the government set a target level for the state pension based on a share of median full-time earnings. In years when the state pension is at the target level, the state pension would be uprated in line with average earnings growth. For years when inflation rose above average earnings growth, the state pension would instead increase in line with inflation.
In 2024, the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI), an independent research organisation, published a briefing paper highlighting three alternatives to the state pension triple lock.
As well as a double lock – similar to the IFS’s recommendation – the PPI looked at two earnings-linked options.
- Earnings-linked option one: This route would increase the state pension in line with earnings growth.
- Earnings-linked option two: This option would increase the state pension by an average of CPI and earnings growth.
The first earnings-linked option risks leaving pensioners exposed in periods where the rate of inflation outstrips wage increases, but the second offers more of a compromise.
Among the drawbacks of an approach like this would be the idea that younger generations would fear the state pension would be eroded before they had a chance to receive it.
Should the state pension be means-tested?
There have been calls to means-test the state pension, which would lower the financial burden on the government while ensuring those on the lowest incomes had enough to live on.
Some experts have suggested means-testing the state pension could give the government an extra lever, beyond increasing the state pension age, to manage costs.
However, Helen Morrissey, head of retirement analysis at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “Talk of means-testing the state pension causes huge concern and could get in the way of people making decisions such as buying National Insurance credits that could improve how much they receive."
Morrissey warned that these kinds of rumours can lead to people being turned off pension saving because they feel they will be penalised for doing the right thing, losing their state entitlement because they have built up sufficient wealth elsewhere.
Others could end up leaving themselves short today – effectively over-saving – because they are worried that they may not get a state pension later on.
The IFS is also against managing costs in this way. In its pensions review published in summer of 2025, the think tank urged the government to commit to never means-testing the state pension.
“This promise would help working-age people in planning their retirement, as they could have trust in the state pension being available,” the think tank said. “It is also worth noting that the state pension makes up a large part of incomes even for people on higher incomes.”
The IFS pointed to research which shows the state pension accounts for 71% of retirement income for low-income pensioners (bottom fifth). Even among the richest fifth, it accounts for 23%.
There is some support for means-testing the state pension, though, with research from J.P. Morgan Personal Investing showing that 53% of gen Z and 57% millennials are in favour of means-testing it.
Surprisingly there is some support for means-testing the state pension among those already retired, with 32% of baby boomers and 31% of the silent generation in favour.
Even more counter-intuitively, support for means-testing was highest among wealthier individuals (who would be hit hardest by it); among those earning £90,000 or more support for means-testing was 63%, compared to 47% amongst all adults.
Could the number of contribution years to get the state pension rise?
Another way to reduce the cost of the state pension is to tighten the eligibility criteria, something the IEA has also proposed, by increasing the number of years of National Insurance contributions required.
The state pension is not automatic for those reaching 66. You need at least 10 qualifying years on your National Insurance record to be able to claim the state pension.
At the moment you need a full 35 years of contributions to receive the full new state pension; if you have fewer years, your pension is reduced pro rata.
In the recent past, as a male, you needed 44 years of contributions to receive a pension at 65; a woman needed to have paid in for 39 years to get a pension at 60. Even in France, where pensions are payable at 62, you need 43 years in the system to get a full state pension.
According to the IEA’s Shackleton, this suggests the UK’s current 35-year NI requirement, particularly with a rising state pension age, “is not a big ask – particularly as there are various credits if you are not working through caring responsibilities, illness and so on”.
“So we could conceivably phase in a requirement for, say, 40 years of contributions to receive a full pension and 15 years to get any pension,” he said.
“It wouldn’t affect current pensions in payment, but it would over time reduce the amount paid out. The main sufferers would probably be recent migrants.”
