The shift from a busy career to retirement is a difficult transition. Retirees must cope with a change of identity. For those used to managing projects, leading teams and sharing ideas, it can feel difficult when their expertise is no longer needed. While a phased retirement can make the change easier, losing a role that has shaped adult life for decades can still be a difficult adjustment.

Equally, the workplace brings connection and interaction. Sociability is a muscle and can be easily lost. Some retirees will build new networks, but others may find it difficult to replicate the natural human contact in a workplace. This was evident across the latest research from BNY Investments and NextWealth – “Retirement Advice in the UK: Turning Insight into Outcomes”. It showed how deeply work shapes identity, routines and social roles, particularly for business owners and professionals. 

Understanding clients’ retirement concerns

Advisers increasingly find they have a role as counsellors for their clients who are struggling. One-fifth of retirees are interested in help on the non-financial aspects of transitioning into retirement – far more may need help but are not willing to admit it.

The struggle for clients may begin prior to retirement. Clients may be reluctant to discuss their plans, defer decision making, or be vague about details. They may avoid giving their adviser the answers needed, or suggest elaborate and unrealistic plans. The phenomenon of “I just need to complete this/earn that before I start planning” will be familiar to many advisers.

Most clients get through it. Advisers describe clients who insist they will ‘never retire’, only later to embrace retirement fully once they have mentally adjusted to the change. However, advisers need to be equipped with the tools to help clients through the process.

Advisers also need to acknowledge that the prospect of retirement can bring about changes in clients who were previously financially confident. The NextWealth research found that, among people in their 50s still living wholly on earned income, confidence around retirement is relatively high. However, at that stage retirement remains largely theoretical and untested. The confidence starts to evaporate as retirement approaches and decisions become real. At 60, only around 30% would be confident about managing their personal pension alone. Advice can feel difficult at this point, but it can be crucial to long-term financial wellbeing.

Supporting clients through the transition

Advisers need to approach the subject of retirement gently and in good time. A former adviser, now a communication and behaviour specialist, says: “There’s a track people follow. If it’s too far off, people don’t connect with it or imagine themselves retiring. The closer it gets, people start to mentally prepare and think about what’s going to change and what’s going to stay the same. My argument is, the more advisers initiate and facilitate that thinking, the better. When do you start the process? Research says, about three years away. That’s how long it takes people on average to make the decision to retire.”

Some advisers have had success with running pre-retirement workshops. Not only can this be a good way to help clients with some of the financial and emotional challenges of retirement, but it can also help forge social connections.

One former adviser said this was one of the best things they had done to help their pre-retirees, running the courses a couple of times a year. “Have workbooks and exercises for people to do at their tables and get them interacting and discussing. Then people go, ‘actually it’s not just me having these thoughts or feelings’. I think that adds a huge amount of value.”

There is a counselling aspect to the adviser’s role at this stage. They may need to create enough psychological safety for clients to engage honestly with decisions that feel irreversible. A former psychotherapist, who now works with financial advisers on the behavioural and relational aspects of financial choices, recalls working with an adviser whose clients felt paralysed by their retirement decision making: “They hadn’t spoken to their children about retirement because they were anxious about how it would go. The adviser suggested bringing the children into the conversation, creating a safe space to talk about inheritance and future responsibilities, childcare, etc. It shifted everything. The couple were able to move forward once the assumptions they’d been holding so tightly were finally questioned.”

Overall, it is important for advisers to be alert to the signs. Clients who are reluctant to talk about their future spending plans, or the right level of retirement income, may be struggling with the prospect of a new reality. It is possible that family members are pushing them into a decision for which they are not yet ready. The loss of structure and identity may feel overwhelming.

The British Heart Foundation suggests approaching retirement as a new job, actively planning it beforehand, identifying ambitions and goals, and structuring the day around them¹. It suggests consciously building new social networks. By helping clients think through these wider changes, advisers can support the transition both financially and emotionally.

¹5 tips for a happy retirement, British Heart Foundation, 26 March 2025

Research conducted by NextWealth for BNY Investments, based on responses to surveys with 207 retirement-focused financial advisers and 260 consumers of financial advice conducted in November 2025.