I’m only a few years away from hitting 60…
And it’s strange…
Because I’m about to join the demographic that I’ve specialised in helping for THREE DECADES.
You see, I first started working for a financial information publishing company back in the early-90s when I was in my mid 20s.
Their products included investment newsletters like The Fleet Street Letter and The Penny Share Guide.
These titles were aimed squarely at the 60+ market.
People who were about to retire, or had already retired, and wanted to make themselves more financially secure.
When I started my own publishing business in 2003, the audience was largely the same – older people who wanted to find ways to make money or start a business.
Most of the people who subscribed to my newsletters or bought my products were over 60, and so those were the people I talked to, thought about and wrote to!
Now I have finally caught up! 😉
I’m actually excited about getting older, because I know from my decades of research what amazing potential there is to achieve exciting things in this stage of life.
And what it means to be 60, 70, 80 or even 90 has changed radically.
People of these ages are no longer confined to the margins… dismissed and forgotten… left to sit in rocking chairs eating boiled sweets.
They are running businesses, holding high office, making art and performing music.
Just look at Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan filling stadiums in their 80s – and still retaining their ‘cool’.
Or Jane Fonda protesting on climate change marches as 87…
Or David Attenborough presenting TV shows at the age of 100.
Like them, I have no intention of ‘retiring’
Certainly not in the way my grandparents did.
I love running a business… discovering new opportunities… travelling to conferences… learning new skills… using new tech tools and platforms.
For me, writing and communicating is part of who I am.
So I’ve no intention of giving that all up when I’m 67.
I’m not the sort to sit around twiddling my thumbs, watching TV or pottering around a garden.
And I’m by far from the only one.
There’s an ever-growing market of people over 60 who are eager to learn new skills, start businesses, make money and pursue exciting interests.
And because of economic pressures, a lot of them need to increase their retirement income if they want a comfortable older age – even more so than when I was writing for investment newsletters in 1995!
Which has created a potentially profitable trend with a lot of niches that you could target for a product or service.
This is what I’d like to show you today in a brand new report on my Substack HERE.
I was initially inspired by a news story in the USA.
The Rise of the Greybeards
This year, the American car maker Ford had a problem.
It had spent a fortune fitting out its design and manufacturing lines with the latest artificial intelligence… including clever cameras and automated systems meant to spot faults and improve quality.
But the technology kept missing things. It did not have the instinct, the judgement or the hard-won know-how to catch what a truly experienced eye would catch.
So Ford rehired 350 of its retired veteran engineers. Men and women in their sixties and seventies, brought back in to do a job the machines could not. The company even had a nickname for them: “The greybeards”.
These old hands were not just there to fix the cars. They were there to train humans and AI. Their decades of pattern recognition, troubleshooting and common sense gave them incredible value.
This story is good news for the older population, not just in the States but here in the UK.
We are forever being told that robots and AI are coming for our jobs, and that older workers are for the scrapheap. Bur Ford’s greybeards show us that in a world of machines, human experience is becoming more valuable.
Which means there’s a place for older people to offer their expertise and wisdom – and a good thing too.
Because millions of people who would normally have retired at 60-65 either cannot do so… or don’t wish to do so.
A Trend For Longer Lives…
The country is ageing, and fast.
- The number of people of pensionable age is projected to rise from 12.4 million to 14.2 million by mid-2034… a 14.6% increase.
- The share of the population over 65 is expected to reach 28% by 2075, up from 19% today.
- The over-85s are growing fastest: 1.75 million people were aged 85+ by mid-2024 (2.5% of the population), projected to reach 3.6 million (4.9% of the population) by 2049.
But these people won’t necessarily retire – certainly not like they used to.
You see, for most of the last century, retirement meant one thing.
You stopped work, drew your pension, and you saw out your days in a deckchair in your garden.
But that model is falling apart.
People are living far longer, staying fit and sharp for longer. A man of sixty today can expect, on average, another twenty-five years.
A woman, twenty-seven. Retirement is no longer a short final chapter. For many it is a second act lasting twenty, twenty-five, even thirty years.
And a pension built for a ten-year retirement simply will not stretch that far.
The full new State Pension works out at around £12,550 a year. Yet Pensions UK reckons a single person needs about £13,900 a year just for a ‘minimum’ retirement, and £32,700 for a ‘moderate’ one.
Yet nearly half of all working-age adults are paying nothing into a pension at all. And among the self-employed, just 4%, one in twenty-five, are saving for their old age.
In 2026, a government-backed Pensions Commission warned that at least 15 million Britons are not saving enough, a figure that could climb to 19 million.
It means that only one in ten Britons are on track for a comfortable retirement. Only a quarter are forecast to reach a moderate lifestyle. And the full State Pension does not even cover the minimum standard for a single person.
So older people now find themselves in a troubling position. They may need an extra £300, £500, £1,000 or £2,000 a month to feel safe, independent and in control.
They can only achieve this through finding part-time work, freelance gigs, side hustles, home business projects or selling their advice and consultancy services.
This is why a record 1.37 million people aged sixty-five and over are still working in the UK.
That’s around 835,000 more than in 2004.
Self-employment among older people is surging too. Analysis of ONS data found a record 991,432 self-employed workers aged sixty or over in the UK in 2023, up 33% in a decade.
People aged sixty and over now make up 23% of the country’s self-employed workforce. Those aged fifty and over make up almost half of it.
And among those nearly one million self-employed over-sixties, more than 223,000 were aged over seventy.
The result is a new movement… Unretirement.
Older people are working longer, returning to work, going self-employed, or building small, flexible income streams around the things they already know.
And a need for an income is not the only driver behind this trend.
Read the Full report here (and please do subscribe – it’s free!)
Why It’s Not Just About Money
A working career gives us far more than a wage.
It gives us structure to our days, a reason to get up, people to see, problems to solve, and a sense that we matter to society.
So for many people, retirement is not the blissful release they imagined.
After the first few weeks of lie-ins and long lunches, something can start to feel amiss. The diary is empty. They don’t see as many people as they used to.
And they wonder, what am I actually for now?
Many of these people don’t want to sit around doing nothing.
They want to engage in fulfilling activities that keep their minds and bodies active, and which give them a sense of identity and purpose.
This is why so many people are drawn to unretirement.
They miss the sense of purpose. They miss having some structure to their days and weeks. They miss being useful. They miss being part of something valuable.
So these people are actively seeking information that will help them live richer, more active and fulfilled lives in their retirement years.
For instance, here is a Google Trend chart showing the trend for the search term “retirement advice.”
It’s even more dramatic when you look at the past 10 years.
And this presents you with a golden opportunity…
Products and Service for A Growing Older Market
At the same time as millions of older people are seeking ways to share their skills and knowledge to make an extra income, the AI-driven world is rediscovering that their experience is really valuable.
So you can show older people how to turn their experience, into an income, for instance:
- Find profitable freelance gigs
- Make money from side hustles
- Start online and offline businessesCoach, consult and teach other people
- Invest and build wealth
- Create services and tools
You can also offer this older market information, strategies and tools that will help people live richer, more active and socially connected lives. Including ways they can:
- Invest and grow their wealth
- Budget and save money
- Stay sharp and engaged
- Remain independent and in control
- Enjoy good relationships
- Partake in meaningful hobbies and pastimes
- Join offline and online communities
- Be creative and find an audience
- Travel and enjoy new experiences.
To show you what’s possible I’ve created a new trend report on my Substack.
You’ll find full analysis of the unretirement trend, along with sub-trends and niches you could target.
0 Comments