Understand your pension. Make better-informed retirement decisions.

What Is a Pension?

Understand how pensions work, the main types and the role they can play in retirement planning.

Defined Contribution Pensions

How money-purchase pensions build value and what determines the eventual outcome.

Defined Benefit Pensions

Understand final salary and career-average pensions, promised income and valuable guarantees.

What Is a SIPP?

How self-invested personal pensions work and why greater choice can also mean greater responsibility.

Workplace Pensions & Auto-Enrolment

Contributions, employer funding and the key rules behind workplace pension saving.

How to Find Old or Lost Pensions

A practical route for tracing pensions from former employers and providers.

Building your pension

How Much Should I Contribute?

Work backwards from the retirement you want rather than relying on a universal percentage.

Pensions for the Self-Employed

Building retirement savings when there is no employer automatically contributing for you.

Company Director Pension Contributions

Personal and company pension contributions for directors and owner-managed businesses.

Pension Salary Sacrifice

How salary exchange can work and what to consider before changing remuneration.

Pension or ISA?

Compare access, tax treatment and the different jobs pensions and ISAs can do.

How Should My Pension Be Invested?

Risk, diversification, default funds and aligning investments with the retirement plan.

Pension tax

Tax Relief & Annual Allowance

The core rules governing pension tax relief and how much can be saved tax-efficiently.

Pension Carry Forward

When unused annual allowance from earlier tax years can potentially be used.

Tapered Annual Allowance

How higher income can reduce the annual allowance available for pension saving.

Money Purchase Annual Allowance

How flexible pension access can restrict future defined contribution pension saving.

Exceeding the Annual Allowance

Annual allowance tax charges, carry forward and the role of Scheme Pays.

Tax-Free Cash & Lump Sum Allowances

Understand pension tax-free cash and the lump sum allowances that now apply.

Planning retirement

Understanding the State Pension

Qualifying years, forecasts, gaps and how the State Pension fits into retirement income.

How Much Do I Need to Retire?

Turn future spending into a retirement funding target rather than relying on a generic pot size.

Can I Retire Early?

The financial questions behind stopping work before the conventional retirement age.

Taking Your Pension While Still Working

How earnings, pension withdrawals, contributions and tax interact during phased retirement.

Taking retirement income

Taking Money From Your Pension

An overview of tax-free cash, drawdown, annuities and pension lump sums.

Should I Take My Tax-Free Cash?

Questions to consider before taking pension tax-free cash simply because it is available.

Flexi-Access Drawdown

How drawdown works, investment risk and the implications of flexible withdrawals.

What Is an Annuity?

How pension savings can be exchanged for guaranteed retirement income.

Drawdown or Annuity?

Compare flexibility, guarantees and investment risk when choosing retirement income.

Transfers & consolidation

Pension Consolidation

The potential benefits and risks of bringing several pensions together.

Should I Transfer My Pension?

Charges, guarantees, protected benefits and other factors to check before transferring.

Life events & protection

What Happens to My Pension When I Die?

Beneficiaries, pension death benefits and the changing inheritance-tax landscape.

Pensions and Divorce

Pension sharing, attachment and offsetting when pensions form part of a divorce settlement.

Pension Scams

Recognise common warning signs and check who you are dealing with before moving pension money.