Not every financial shock starts with income stopping altogether. For many clients, the bigger pressure may come when work continues, but income, hours or career plans change for longer than expected.
Will I still be able to work?"
It's one of the first questions many people ask after a cancer diagnosis. The answer is often yes, but not always in the same way.
A client may return on fewer hours. They may need more flexibility around treatment or appointments. A physical job, regular travel or long days may become harder. Someone who is self-employed may keep the business running but take on fewer clients.
That can be harder to plan for than a clean break from work, because the impact may build gradually across income, savings, pension contributions and retirement choices.
Financial planning often looks at what happens if income stops altogether. But for many clients, the harder question may be what happens if income changes for a long period of time.
When income changes, the plan may need to change too
It's still important to understand what would happen if a client's income disappeared. But that isn't the only pressure point.
A smaller, longer-lasting change can also affect the shape of a plan. Income might fall by 20% or 30% for several years. Pension contributions may reduce, a partner may need to work differently, or retirement may arrive earlier than planned.
None of those scenarios means the client has stopped working. But each could change what's affordable, when, and for how long.
This matters more as more people live with and beyond cancer. Scottish Widows' Living with and beyond cancer in 2045 report informed by Macmillan Cancer Support, projects that the number of people in the UK living with and beyond cancer could rise from 3.4 million in 2025 to 5.4 million by 2045.
Behind that projection are people at very different points in treatment, recovery and working life. Some will continue working. Some will stop. Others will move between the two.
Working again doesn't always mean working as before
More people surviving cancer and living for longer is welcome progress. But a return to work can look very different from the working life someone had before diagnosis.
The report describes how fatigue and menopausal side effects linked to some breast cancer treatments can make returning to work more difficult, even when the cancer is controlled or cured. It also considers how bowel and bladder effects after prostate cancer treatment can affect everyday life, including work.
The personal experiences in the report show how different the outcomes can be. One contributor left a career he'd loved for 30 years. Another reduced her hours with support from her employer. A third retrained for a new profession after colorectal cancer. They're individual stories, not predictions. But they show why a better question may be what kind of work remains possible, and what that means financially.
One way to open that conversation is to ask what the plan should protect first if work had to change.
The space between full income and no income
A client doesn't need to lose their entire income for their plan to come under pressure. The more immediate question may be whether the household could absorb a different kind of working life.
That might mean asking whether the household could manage on four days a week, whether pension contributions could continue at a lower level, or what earlier retirement could mean for later-life income.
This isn't about alarming clients or trying to predict a diagnosis. It's about understanding whether the plan gives them room to make choices if life changes. In practice, resilience is rarely built from one source. A critical illness payment, income protection, savings, employer support and household income may each meet a different need at a different point.
The adviser's role is to understand how those pieces fit together before the client has to rely on them, and whether they still work if income changes rather than stops.
The value of keeping choices open
The most valuable outcome may not be replacing every pound of lost income. It may be giving someone enough room to decide what happens next.
That could mean reducing hours without quickly using up retirement savings. It could mean taking proper time away from work, retraining, changing role or retiring earlier because that is the right choice, rather than the only financially possible one.
Advisers are likely to see more clients whose working lives sit somewhere between "working" and "unable to work".
The strongest plans do not only prepare for the moment income stops. They also help clients keep options open when work, income and choices change over time.
Find out more
Read Scottish Widows' Living with and beyond cancer in 2045 report to explore how cancer prevalence is projected to change, and what that could mean for work, income and financial resilience.
Source: Scottish Widows, Living with and beyond cancer in 2045, 2026
