To ask about your work place pension?

[Mmmmarmalade]

How much you contribute as a % of your salary and how much your employer does?

The minimum an employer has to is 3% which feels awfully low.

my old old employer had a very good scheme, performed v well to, they paid 10% and then a further match up to 6%.
current is ok competitively but not as good, 8+5%

what’s yours like? Wish I still had my old pension plan, can’t lie

I pay 6%, they pay 23%. Local government.

Mine is defined benefit so what I pay and what my employer pays is entirely irrelevant. However in the defined contribution scheme I could join if I wanted, the employer pays between 8% and 14.75% depending on age, plus will match employee contributions up to 3%.

Civil Service. I contribute 5.45% per month. They contribute 27% per month. Never thought I’d get better than the NHS until I joined the CS.

Ours is woeful.
Most staff 3% but only if they contribute 5%.
I get 5% and put in 20%.
Other employers in my sector typically do a 10% match.
Luckily I am mid 50s so have a bit of final salary to look forward to

I'm a teacher - I pay 10.2% and my employer pays 26.68%

Literally the absolute basics!

"what is a defined benefit scheme."
"Why is it good/bad compared to other options?" (which would help when choosing what option to go for, as there are different ones within CSP)
"Why is the amount on my ABS not equivalent to the amount that the website says my contributions and my employer's contributions are?"
"What does the amount at the bottom of my ABS scheme mean? Is that how much I will get a year, every year when I retire?"
"How does that work with inflation?"
"Why does it seem so low?" I understand NOW that's because it operates on a compound basis, but basically the first time I saw my statement I thought ???
Because in my head, say I was paying 5% on a 30,000 salary, and my employer was paying 27%, that "should" be £9600, so I didn't understand why it was "Only" £1000 odd

But tbh I also think MyCPS are an absolutely terrible administrator which doesn't help- I had a friend with a fairly straightforward "issue" (she had 2 jobs at the same time, both with the CSP), that took nearly 4 years and escalation to the pensions ombudsman to resolve . Everyone in my work has had huge administrative issues trying to log on to their pension portal etc. Every single letter I've had from them has spelt my name wrong, despite them having ALL my details, and my email address (which they've spelled correctly!) being the same name. Our HR/payroll person hates them too. Every time you ring their help centre you seem to speak to people who have never actually heard of pensions, let alone should be specialists!

NHS is defined benefit though so not comparable to a DC scheme.

15% from employer
Then I pay 5%
And they pay another 2.5% of my contribution

NHS is defined benefit so you get a guaranteed pension at retirement (which increases with inflation) eg. £5000 a year rather than a pot of money which is what a DC scheme is eg. £100,000 pot at retirement which YOU have to make last until you die.

The NHS scheme will pay you that £5000 until you die so the scheme takes on the investment risk hence why they’re so valuable.

Charity. Employer double matches up to 8%, so I pay 8%, they pay 16%. DC scheme

I pay 6% they pay 21%. Not for profit / non departmental public body type / think tank organisation

I pay in 8.5% and my employer pays in 12.4%

They match up to 4%

My employer puts in i think 10%. I add another 15%. I am turning 40 & don't want to work forever

My employer = 5%
Me = 30% which is the max I can do

Employer puts in 25% and I put in 12.5%

Private sector. I pay 7.5%, company 15% & I also add an additional £400 pm.

Will be more when we are mortgage-free and out of the expensive nursery years.

Oh and mine is DC.

Anyone getting over 15% "employer comtribution" is likely talking about a defined benefit scheme, in reality the contribution is not what defines the pension they will receive.

I got told once you should aim to be putting at least half your age as a % into your pension.

Eg if you are 26, 13%. 44, 22%.

Personally it isn't enough for the level of income most of us want in retirement

I pay 6% employer 19%

Private sector, global company & while they have since stopped it for new entrants I’m on their non contributory final salary scheme.

My pension will be end of career salary x 2%. X years worked (up to a max of 44) less an adjustment that accounts for your state pension. Essentially if I worked to 65 then I’d retire on around 80% of my salary with my work pension & state pension combined. If there is no basic state pension when I retire the work pension would make up the shortfall based on their terms. There is a cap of 2.5% on annual increases once you start claiming so it could certainly be devalued over time and I’m saving separately to help address that. Still feel it’s a very generous scheme and I was fortunate to join the company when it was still available.