Pensions for dummies

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I am the dummy in this circumstance.
I am mid-30s and never really looked into this.

Working full-time since leaving university so assume all should be well with state pension. I was auto-enrolled into workplace pension when it became compulsory a few years ago. But apart from that, nothing.

I understand that this 'not enough'. So ought I up my contributions to my work place pension which would seem straight forward or ought I be looking for some other pension product and if so what.

Please help a dummy .

What's your workplace pension scheme like? Can you have a look at the annual statement to see how it's looking.
If it's NEST or a Government scheme, they tend to be pretty rubbish in terms of returns, so an alternative private pension would be far better.
Whatever additional contributions you make are tax deductible though so if you do set up your own pension, make sure you sign up for self assessment to get the tax back. If you increase your contributions to your work scheme then the tax should be sorted at source, but check that because if you're a higher rate tax payer, you might not get the full tax benefit.

It depends how good the fund choices are in the workplace pension and the fees. You may get lower costs having a SIPP where you choose the funds.

I would start though by learning about pensions. This is podcast series about the various types of pensions in the UK.
meaningfulmoney.tv/season-11-pensions-masterclass/

It was a balance of £4787 on 31st July. It's with the People's Pension. Money invested in B&CE.

How much do your company contribute?

Some only add the percentage they are obliged to.

Some will ‘match’ your contributions or better e.g if you contribute 10% they’ll contribute 10% or more.

Obviously if you’re in a scheme like the latter, it pays to max your contributions to the level the company will pay for.

A rule of thumb is that you should contribute the percentage of your salary throughout your working life that is half your age when you start. So if you started a pension at 20, contribute 10%. If you start at 30, contribute 15%. That sounds scary but if your employer is making up some of the percentage not so bad.