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Workplace pensions

Workplace pensions

Minimum total contribution 8% of qualifying earnings
Minimum employer contribution 3%
Qualifying earnings band £6,240 – £50,270
Lost a pension pot? Find it →

What do you need to know?

Jump straight to the guide that answers your question.

Auto-enrolment

How automatic enrolment works, current contribution rates, opting out, and rules for part-time and self-employed workers.

Defined benefit pensions

Final salary and career average schemes, transfer values, and the serious decision of whether to transfer out.

Defined contribution pensions

How a DC pot grows, the investment choices behind it, and how master trusts like NEST run most workplace schemes.

Changing jobs

What happens to your pension when you move employer, whether to consolidate old pots, and how to trace lost ones.

For most people in the UK, a workplace pension is the single most important vehicle they'll ever use to save for retirement — and, since auto-enrolment launched in 2012, one that's largely arranged automatically rather than requiring an active decision to start.

But "workplace pension" covers a surprisingly wide range of arrangements: the auto-enrolment rules that determine who gets enrolled and how much is paid in, defined benefit schemes that promise a guaranteed income for life, defined contribution pensions where your eventual pot depends on contributions and investment growth, and the practical realities of managing pensions as you move between employers over a career.

This section brings all four areas together in plain English, whether you want to understand a recent enrolment letter, work out what type of pension you actually have, or track down a pot from a job you left years ago.