Workplace Pension / Auto-Enrolment Contribution Calculator

Under UK law, employers must automatically enrol eligible staff into a workplace pension and pay a minimum contribution on their behalf. The statutory minimum total contribution is 8% of qualifying earnings, split between at least 3% from your employer and 5% from you. Of your 5%, the government effectively contributes 1 percentage point as basic-rate tax relief — so your net cost is lower than the headline figure.

Contributions are calculated on qualifying earnings — the slice of your gross annual pay between £6,240 and £50,270 — unless your employer's scheme instead uses a "total earnings" or "basic pay" basis, in which case the percentages apply to your full salary with no band applied. Total-earnings schemes usually mean a bigger pension pot for the same headline percentage, since more of your salary counts.

Employers are free to pay more than the statutory minimum, and some match extra employee contributions as part of their benefits package — always check your contract or staff handbook for your specific scheme's rates.

You're automatically enrolled into your employer's workplace pension scheme if you're aged between 22 and State Pension age, earn over £10,000 a year, and ordinarily work in the UK. If you earn less or fall outside this age range, you can usually still opt in and — for earnings above the lower qualifying earnings limit — your employer must still contribute.

Opting out means you stop your own contributions, but critically your employer stops theirs too — you lose free employer money and the government tax relief top-up. Employers must re-enrol eligible staff roughly every three years, giving anyone who opted out another chance to reconsider.

With salary sacrifice, instead of paying your pension contribution out of your take-home pay, you agree to a lower contractual salary and your employer pays the sacrificed amount straight into your pension. Because that amount never appears as salary, neither you nor your employer pay National Insurance on it — a saving on both sides that a standard net-pay or relief-at-source pension contribution doesn't give you.

Many employers pass on some or all of their own NI saving as an extra pension contribution, which can meaningfully boost your pot for no extra cost to you. Toggle salary sacrifice on above to see the employee and employer NI savings for your salary.