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Employee pension contributions rise to £3.2bn in Q1 – ONS

This was £600m higher than the £2.6bn recorded in the same period of 2025.

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Employee contributions to private sector defined contribution (DC) workplace pension schemes reached £3.2bn in the first quarter of 2026, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed.

This was £600m higher than the £2.6bn recorded in the same period of 2025.

Employer contributions rose from £6.2bn to £6.8bn over the same period.

Active membership increased by 30,000 to 11.5 million, while deferred membership rose by more than 750,000 from 22.1 million to 22.9 million.

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Damon Hopkins, head of defined contribution workplace savings at Broadstone:

“The continued growth in workplace pension saving is encouraging, with millions of employees now routinely putting money aside for retirement and employee contributions reaching £3.2 billion in the first quarter alone.

“Employers are making an enormous financial contribution to later-life savings too, making it all the more important that businesses ensure this money is being used as effectively as possible, through well-designed pension provision, strong governance and meaningful employee engagement.

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“Auto-enrolment has transformed pension participation, but participation and adequacy are not the same thing.

“For many workers, particularly those on lower or middle incomes, the more important question is whether the amounts being saved today will ultimately provide the standard of living they expect in retirement.

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“Employers have an important role to play here. Workplace pensions are one of the most valuable benefits they provide, but there is an opportunity to go beyond simply meeting minimum contribution requirements by helping employees understand what they and their employer are contributing, what that could mean for their retirement income and whether they may need to save more.

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“The continued rise in deferred membership also reflects an increasingly mobile workforce, with employees accumulating pension pots as they move between jobs.

“Consolidation and pensions dashboards should make those savings easier to manage, but the wider challenge is ensuring workers remain engaged with their pension throughout their careers.

“As attention increasingly turns from pension participation towards pension adequacy, employers that communicate effectively and encourage employees to engage with their long-term savings can play an important part in helping improve retirement outcomes.”

Maurice Titley, commercial director of data and dashboards at Lumera:

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“These figures underline the continued expansion of private sector Defined Contribution pension saving across the UK, with employee contributions increasing and millions of workers continuing to save through workplace pensions.

“The increase in employee contributions to £3.2 billion is particularly encouraging and demonstrates the scale of long-term saving taking place through workplace pension schemes, underpinned by automatic enrolment.

“However, the continued growth in deferred membership is a reminder of one of the major challenges facing the DC market. Millions of people are accumulating and then leaving behind multiple pension pots as they move between employers, making it harder for savers to keep track of their retirement savings, and inevitably also increasing the numbers of small pots that exist within the system.

“That makes the Government’s work on small-pot consolidation and the rollout of pensions dashboards increasingly important. The next phase of pension reform needs to build on the success of automatic enrolment by making it easier for people not only to save, but to see and understand what they have accumulated and take appropriate action to improve their retirement outcomes.”

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