Workplace and personal pensions in Northern Ireland

If you earn less, you can still ask to join, and above £6,240 a year your employer has to contribute too.

Automatic enrolment

Employers must enrol eligible workers into a workplace pension scheme. If you earn less than £10,000 a year (which is £192 a week or £833 a month), your employer won’t automatically enrol you in a workplace pension.

Earning more than £6,240 up to £10,000 a year, you have the right to join the pension if you want. Earning £6,240 or less, you have the right to ask them to enrol you.

What goes in

From April 2019 the amount of total minimum contributions increased to eight per cent - your employer will contribute three per cent and you will contribute five per cent. Your five per cent includes tax relief from the government.

Under automatic enrolment schemes, you’ll make contributions based on your total earnings between £6,240 and £50,270 a year before tax. Your pension scheme provider then claims the tax back from the government at the basic rate of 20 per cent.

Opting out and back in

When your employer has enrolled you in a workplace pension, you can opt out if you want to. To opt out, you have to contact the pension scheme provider. If you want to start paying into your employer’s workplace pension again, you need to write to your employer to request to be enrolled. Your employer must accept your request once in a 12-month period.

Taking your pension

You cannot usually take money from your pension scheme until you are at least 55, unless you're seriously ill. In most schemes you can take 25 per cent of your pension pot as a tax-free lump sum.

If you have serious ill-health and your life expectancy is less than a year you can retire at any age. You can take up to 100 per cent of your pension fund as a tax-free lump sum.

Personal and stakeholder pensions

You can save as much as you want in a personal pension. You will get tax relief on the amount you put in up to the annual allowance. Stakeholder pensions are personal pensions that must meet government standards to limit annual management charges, and you can stop payments for a while without it costing you anything. The earliest age you can take a stakeholder pension is usually 55.

If you are unemployed you can receive National Insurance credits towards your basic State Pension provided you receive or received Jobseeker’s Allowance.

If something goes wrong

If your pension provider was authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and cannot pay your pension, you can get compensation from The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). Your employer can't spend the pension fund if they have financial problems.

Workplace pension schemes, which are provided through your work, by law must offer a formal complaints procedure. They must reply to your complaint within eight weeks. The Money and Pensions Service gives free, impartial pension guidance, and can help you find a lost pension.

Common questions

Keep going