Pensions have a reputation for being complicated. They're full of jargon, they feel decades away and, for many people, they're something to deal with later.

But retirement is one of the biggest financial goals most of us will ever have. And despite years of progress, women in the UK are still reaching later life with significantly less financial security than men.

In this week's episode of The Wallet, Emilie Bellet spoke to Susan Hope, Business Development Director at Scottish Widows and one of the leading voices behind the Women and Retirement Report, one of the UK's longest-running pieces of research into women's financial resilience.

The conversation wasn't simply about pensions. It was about why the gender pension gap still exists, what has improved over the past two decades, where the system still falls short, and what women can do to feel more in control of their retirement.

It may seem that retirement is a lifetime away, but the reality is that it’s never too early to start saving so that you can ensure that you have the retirement that you deserve. If you’ve ever read a pension guide before, you’ll already know that it’s difficult to say exactly how much everyone needs to save as we all have unique circumstances.

That being said, it’s well worth taking the time to experiment with a pension calculator so that you can get a better idea of what you’ll need to do. Before you do that, here are some factors that you’ll need to consider..