Your Family - Pensions & Retirement

Pensions & retirement

Accessing your Pension

When you reach age 55 you will be able to start taking some retirement benefits. In other words, you will have access to the money that you have built up in your workplace pension, but not your State Pension yet. In essence, you can take as little or as much as you want from your workplace pension and there are a number of ways of doing this...

Annual Allowance Explained

Annual Allowance is the total you and your employer can put into your defined contribution pension scheme each year without paying tax on these savings. It is a way the government restricts the amount of tax relief given to pensions

High Earners And Salary Sacrifice

Salary sacrifice is an alternative way to save into a pension, cut your income tax, and reduce your National Insurance Contributions (NICs) all at once. You receive a lower salary, but your take home pay might be the exact same or higher, and extra money is paid into your pension by your employer.

How A Pension Works

A pension is arguably the most tax-efficient way of saving money for your retirement. Simply put, a pension is a pot of cash that you, and your employer, can pay into - and which you get tax relief on - as a way of saving up for your retirement.

How Much Is Enough For My Retirement?

When we’re starting out, it’s difficult to look forward forty or so years and imagine the life we’ll be living in retirement, but we can make a reasonable guess that will be near enough to get our planning started. A target of between half and two-thirds of what we’re earning is a reasonable estimate.

How To Request A Pension Forecast

In order to plan for your retirement, you need to figure out how much income you’ll get from all your pensions, including workplace or personal plans, as well as the State Pension.

Is Salary Sacrifice Right For Me?

Salary sacrifice applies to a number of workplace benefits such as childcare vouchers or cycle-to-work schemes, not just pensions. It's where you give up some of your monthly earnings while your employer puts it towards something else - in this case, pension contributions.

Pensions FAQ

How Much Is Enough? - It depends on what kind of lifestyle you want to have at retirement how much money you’ll need. Have a look at our How Much Is Enough page to understand more.

Retirement Jargon Guide

There’s plenty of complicated terminology around retirement, and understanding the relevant terms can help you to make better decisions for later life.

Tapered Annual Allowance Explained

Annual Allowance is how much you and your employer can put into your defined contribution pension scheme each year without paying tax on these savings. If you exceed the allowance, then you will be taxed on the amount above the threshold and you will be faced with an annual allowance charge.