One in three working young people have never contributed to a pension

• MaPS calls on young people to pay into their pension, even if they’re only able to contribute a small amount.  
• One in three 18 to 25-year-olds who are currently working have never contributed to a pension.  
• “We want young people to make sure they’re well informed and get into healthy saving habits early on in their careers” says MaPS. 
• MoneyHelperOpens in a new window can support young people to learn about their pensions.

Among savers (87%), ‘milestone planning’ was the top reported savings priority for young people, with half of 18 to 25-year-olds (51%) saying they are saving to buy a property, get married, or similar life events. 

Leaving planning for retirement in 6th place, with just over one in eight (13%) reporting that they are saving for this.  

MaPS highlights research from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) which shows that contributing to your pension age 35 instead of 25 could result in a £500k pension pot instead of £800k, a detrimental loss of over £300k for a retirement pot. 

Jackie Spencer, Head of Money and Pensions Policy at the Money and Pensions Service, says: 

“We understand that not everyone can regularly contribute high amounts to their pension.

“It’s encouraging that our recent data shows that 71% of young people in full-time employment are contributing to a pension. This likely demonstrates the positive effect of the workplace automatic enrolment, and we’d encourage young people starting new jobs to contribute to their workplace pension.  

“It's important that young people starting out in their careers know that even a small contribution each month can make a difference to their retirement pot, and something is better than nothing.

"For those currently self-employed or not in full-time employment, try to put money aside where you can for retirement and consider a personal pension. When young people do reach the stage of full-time employment, we’d encourage taking advantage of auto-enrolment into your pension if you can.” 

MaPS understands that not everyone is able to pay into a pension, particularly if they are saving money for other reasons, but it’s important to be well informed when making financial decisions.  

When you are part of a workplace pension scheme, you may be eligible for employer contributions and some of the money that would have gone to the government as tax goes towards your pension instead.  

MaPS’ MoneyHelper website has plenty of free and impartial guides to offer support, including our pension calculatorOpens in a new window and a webchat tool where young people can access pension guidance. 

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• This survey was conducted among a nationally representative sample of 2,180 people aged 18+ between 22/05/2024 and 05/06/2024.
• The majority of working young people who are not paying into their pension are casual workers, working zero-hour contracts, and / or are earning less than £10,000 annually.
• The data was weighted to be representative of the UK 18 to 25-year-old population.
• Interviewing was conducted using a mixture of several online research panels.  This means the interview was a self-completion exercise making it easier for people to answer honestly about personal finances