What are the latest UK annuity rates?

Check the latest annuity rates UK providers are offering in April 2025.

Written by Retirement Line
Reviewed by Mark Ormston

Annuity Rates Last Updated: 1st April 2025 - Page Last Updated: 16th April 2025

Latest annuity rates - April 2025

If you are thinking of buying an annuity, securing the best annuity rate is essential to maximise your guaranteed income. We take a look at how annuity rates work, which providers have the best rates this month, and what will affect the rate they offer you.

Watch our video explaining annuity rates

Best annuity rates (April 2025)

Our annuity rates tables give you a snapshot of the latest rates. These tables for single life and joint life annuities show you where rates stand today. They are based on Retirement Line’s search of the best rates from leading providers including Aviva, Canada Life, Legal and General, Scottish Widows and Standard Life.

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Simply select your age below to start comparing today's best annuity rates:

55 - 64 65 - 74 75+

Best single life annuity rates

A single life annuity is a way to convert your pension savings into guaranteed income. When you pass away, the regular payments stop. However, you can add death benefits to provide a lump sum or income to a beneficiary.

These are the best rates for someone using £100,000 to buy a single life annuity paying a level income for life with no death benefits. 

Annuity rates as at 1st April 2025. The current best single life annuity rate for a 65-year-old male is 7.95% from Scottish Widows, which is 0.55% higher than the best rate in March.

Best joint life annuity rates

A joint life annuity also converts your pension savings into guaranteed income. However, when you pass away, it continues to pay your chosen beneficiary a regular income, either in full or a percentage of what you were receiving.

These are the best rates for someone using £100,000 to buy a joint life annuity paying a level income for life.

Annuity rates as at 1st April 2025. The current best 50% joint life annuity rate for a 65-year-old male is 7.27% from Scottish Widows, which is 0.31% higher than the best rate in March.

Annuity rates as at 1st April 2025. The current best 100% joint life annuity rate for a 65-year-old male is 6.74% from Canada Life, which is 0.21% higher than the best rate in March.

Annuity rate changes – November 2024 to April 2025

Annuity income from £100,000 used to buy an annuity at age 65: monthly comparison

Note: Annuity rates at or near the first day of each month.

The annuity rates in our tables and graphs are generated by our in-house system that gathers quotes in real time from the UK’s leading annuity providers. Figures based on conventional lifetime annuities, with level payments set to monthly in arrears. Single life examples are for males with postcode PE7 8JG; joint life examples based on first life being male, and the beneficiary being a female of the same age.

How have providers’ annuity rates changed?

Annuity rates have increased significantly over the past two years or so, fuelled by increases in interest rates and gilt yields. This is of course good news to people who are ready to turn their pension pot into a guaranteed income. Here are examples of how industry sources have reported on rising annuity rates:

• October 2022 - Canada Life reported that typical annuity rates had hit a 14-year high. They said that a benchmark annuity for a 65-year-old using £100,000 to buy an annuity offered a rate of 6.8%, compared to 4.5% at the start of 2022. 

• November 2024 - Money Week was reporting a rate of 7.5% for a similar customer profile. 

• March 2025 - Ruth Emery in Money Week reported that annuity rates had hit a 16-year high and quoted a rate of 7.6%.

Average annuity rates (2014 - 2024)

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. The graph below illustrates very clearly just how significant the recent increase in the annuity rate has been.

What influences pension annuity rates?

When you get annuity quotes, you’ll find that each provider will offer you a unique and personalised annuity rate. The actual rate they offer you could vary considerably from person-to-person and provider-to-provider.

This is because providers won’t just base your rate on your age and pension fund size. They will instead base it on your individual personal circumstances and the type of annuity you wish to take, as well as underlying economic and commercial factors.

There are so many factors that influence your own unique annuity rate and different annuity providers have their own views on these factors. Therefore it is always a good idea to shop around rather than accept the annuity offered by your pension provider.

Retirement Line specialises in shopping around the UK’s leading annuity providers on your behalf as part of our comprehensive annuity quotes and information service.  

Here is a breakdown of the factors that could influence your own unique annuity rate:

1. The annuity provider’s current base rates

Your annuity provider will base their annuity rate on economic and commercial factors, including current UK gilt yields. Annuity providers typically buy government bonds (also known as gilts) to fund their clients’ annuities. The government pays a type of interest known as the gilt yield to the annuity provider. This in turn funds the regular income payments providers make to their annuity clients, so current gilt yields have a significant effect on annuity rates.

2. The size of your pension pot

It doesn’t make a huge difference, but an annuity rate might be partly based on how much of your pension savings you use to buy the annuity. The more you use to buy your annuity, generally the higher the rate in some circumstances.

3. Your age

Life expectancy is central to the annuity rate you are offered. Annuity providers set a rate that spreads your total annuity income across the number of years they would expect you to live.

This is why your age will be an important factor. The older you are, the higher the annuity rate you can expect, and the higher your regular income payments will be.

4. Where you live

Annuity providers use your postcode to help calculate life expectancy. If you live in an area with a lower-than-average life expectancy, you may be offered a slightly higher rate.

5. Your health and lifestyle

Lifetime annuity providers offer enhanced annuities with higher annuity rates that pay out more income. They are offered to people who the provider expects will have a lower life expectancy on account of their health and lifestyle. 

Even being a moderate smoker, being slightly overweight or taking prescription medication that controls a medical condition could mean you qualify for additional income. 

6. The annuity options you choose 

You have a number of options when it comes to buying an annuity, and some of them may influence the annuity rate and income you are offered.

For example, one option is to take an increasing annuity where the payments you receive increase each year, linked to inflation or at a fixed rate. Your income will be lower initially, but it will increase each year. 

Another option is to choose death benefits with your annuity to provide a lump sum or income for a spouse or other beneficiary should you pass away. This will also reduce the annuity rate and size of income payment, in return for the potential value of the death benefits.

7. Access to preferential rates

Retirement Line may be able to secure preferential annuity rates for you. This is thanks to our position as the UK’s number one annuity broker* and our close relationships with the UK’s leading annuity providers. 

This information is for illustrative purposes only.

What are guaranteed annuity rates?

Sometimes the pension scheme you have been saving into will offer you what’s known as a guaranteed annuity rate (GAR). This guarantees a return at a certain percentage if you take an annuity with the existing pension scheme.

The GAR could be higher than the best rate currently available from other annuity providers.

Even so, our Annuity Specialists will be happy to look into whether another provider can offer you a better deal than your pension scheme’s GAR.

Please see our guide ‘What is a guaranteed annuity rate (GAR)?’ for more information.

Next steps: discover YOUR best annuity rate

As we have explained above, annuity providers will personalise your best annuity rate to your individual circumstances. That’s why we invite you to talk to one of our Annuity Specialists so that they can get you personalised quotes from the UK’s leading annuity providers.

For a free, no-obligation annuity quote, you can call us on 0800 652 1316, request a call back, or email us at info@retirementline.co.uk. 

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