All employers must provide a workplace pension scheme. This is called ‘automatic enrolment’. Your employer must automatically enrol you into a pension scheme and make contributions to your pension.
How much you pay and what counts as earnings depend on the pension scheme your employer has chosen but are typically based on a percentage of your pay (includes salaries, bonuses and commissions).
Depending on your employer, and the pension scheme they have chosen, this can be varies but at a minimum:
Opting out
While staying in a pension scheme is recommend in order to save for your retirement, you can leave (called ‘opting out’) if you want to.
If you opt out within a month of your employer adding you to the scheme, you’ll get back any money you’ve already paid in. You are likely to not be able to get your payments refunded if you opt out later - they’ll usually stay in your pension until you retire.
You can opt out by contacting your pension provider.
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We like and use Nest and People's Choice pension schemes.
More information
- Joining a Workplace pension [HMRC]
- What you and your employer pay [HMRC]
- Opting out [HMRC]