Menopause typically happens between the ages of 45 and 55, which is often when earnings and pension saving are at their highest. Some women cut their hours, turn down promotion or stop work earlier than they planned because of symptoms their employer never asked about. Each of those changes affects their income and pension for decades.
Talk to your employer first
- Every employee has had the right to ask for flexible working from their first day in a job since 6 April 2024, not after 26 weeks' service as it used to be. You can make two requests in any 12-month period.
- Your employer must respond within two months and can only refuse on one of eight business grounds set out in law — for example extra cost, an inability to reorganise work among existing staff, or a detrimental effect on quality or performance.
- Ask whether there is a menopause policy and an occupational health service. Acas's menopause guidance recommends both.
- Changes to your working day, rest breaks, temperature, uniform or access to a fan or cold water may let you keep your hours rather than cut them.
Where the law protects you
Menopause itself isn't a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, but its effects often are. If symptoms have a substantial, long-term effect on your ability to do normal daily activities, you may meet the legal definition of disability, which brings a duty on your employer to make reasonable adjustments. Employment tribunals have also upheld menopause-related claims under the Act's sex and age discrimination provisions, since the symptoms affect a group defined by both.
What cutting your hours costs
Worked example. Dropping from five days to three on a £50,000 salary cuts take-home pay by around £1,200 a month at 2026/27 income tax and National Insurance rates. It also shrinks your pension. At minimum auto-enrolment rates (5% employee, 3% employer) on qualifying earnings between £6,240 and £50,270 a year, full-time contributions on a £50,000 salary come to around £3,500 a year. Cut to three days on around £30,000, and the same minimum contributions fall to around £1,900 a year — roughly £1,600 a year less going into your pension for every year you work the shorter week, before the employer's share falls too.
Buzz Financial Planning works through the household figures in can we afford for one of us to go part-time.
If you are thinking of stopping altogether, read can I afford to stop at 60 first, and see when can you retire for how the maths changes. The years before the State Pension arrives cost the most, because they are the years you are living on savings alone.
The smaller costs
- In England an HRT prescription prepayment certificate costs £19.80 and covers all qualifying HRT medicines for 12 months, however many prescriptions you need. Prescriptions are already free in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Check whether your employer's private medical cover or employee assistance programme pays for menopause-related GP or specialist appointments.
- If you're self-employed, prescription and treatment costs come straight off your bottom line rather than through a workplace scheme; see self-employed finances for the wider picture of what to budget for.
Protect your pension
- Find out what happens to your pension contributions if you reduce your hours. Your employer's share often falls with your pay — ask whether they'll maintain contributions at the full-time rate, since some do.
- Check your State Pension record on GOV.UK. You need 35 qualifying years for the full new State Pension of £241.30 a week, and gaps from reduced hours can still count if your pay stays above the Lower Earnings Limit.
- If you have a partner, plan your retirement dates together. Buzz Financial Planning covers retiring at different times.
This week
- Write down what has changed day to day — sleep, concentration, hot flushes at specific times — before the conversation with your employer, not during it.
- Ask HR, in writing, whether a menopause policy and occupational health referral exist.
- Run the numbers on a reduced week using the survival budget calculator before you ask, so the conversation is about what you need, not a guess.
Sources: NHS (menopause, prescription prepayment certificates); GOV.UK (flexible working rights, new State Pension, automatic enrolment earnings thresholds); Acas (menopause at work guidance); Equality Act 2010; income tax, National Insurance and automatic enrolment thresholds at 2026/27 rates. Figures checked 16 October 2026.