Summary
Executive summary
This paper explores how lifecycle investing is being remixed for a new era — through more sophisticated glidepath design, greater personalisation, and the expanding role of private assets in retirement portfolios.
Individuals are assuming greater responsibility for retirement outcomes as Defined Benefit pension schemes close and public pension systems come under pressure. Auto-enrolment, default solutions and digital savings platforms have made saving for retirement more accessible, but the central question remains how those savings should be invested over time.
For many savers, particularly those invested through default pension arrangements or without access to advice, the answer increasingly lies in lifecycle investing. Rather than relying on a static asset allocation, lifecycle strategies use glidepaths that adjust portfolios gradually as retirement approaches.
Designing an effective glidepath is therefore not simply a question of reducing risk with age. It requires a multi-period perspective that reflects the evolution of contributions, salary growth, time horizon, retirement needs, and risk capacity over an individual's working life. It must also accommodate practical realities, including behaviour, regulatory and peer group dynamics, and retirement objectives.
In this paper, we explore how to construct a glidepath that balances theoretical robustness with implementation, drawing on our global experience designing retirement solutions across markets and client segments, as well as the lifecycle research set out in Retirement Accumulation Strategies with Real Assets and Inflation Risk (Roncalli, 2025). Alongside glidepath construction, we consider two themes shaping the next generation of retirement investing: personalisation and the expanding role of private assets.
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