Pensions in the private sector - an impossible goal

[Newmeagain]

I am feeling quite depressed about my pension and it seems to me that for most people in the private sector it is impossible to accumulate a decent pension.

it feels like we have three categories of people: people in the public sector who get really good pensions; people in the private sector with very high paying jobs; and then people in the private sector with less well paying jobs and it is this last group that have no hope.

I currently have a well paying job but for many years my pay was lower and I could not increase my contributions because I was a lone parent and had to prioritise living costs. I am in my early 50s and my pot is £135k. My googling indicates that even a £400k pot (which seems like an impossible goal) would only give me a very modest annual pension. I am single, so no one to share costs with.

You are implying that the less intellectually gifted don’t deserve as nice a retirement. What would be fair for you? The “incredibly dopey thick as mince” sort get half the pension of any “Oxbridge educated” sort?

To be fair i am in your group 3 but live quite frugally and can put away £1000 a month if you include EC. I am currently 51 with 360k. Its not gonna be a life of exotic holidays but if mortgage is paid off and no fuel costs we should be reasonably comfortable. So it is doable.

Presumably he turned it down as @Katypp would be subbing him!

Sorry no idea what happened there with the random underline

This is true for very junior roles (and this to be fair is the majority).

It’s not true at all at the senior end. You can see the very highest salaries here. https://www.gov.uk/csv-preview/69ddfce41927a1a15933255b/High_Earner_list_2025_Master_Apr26.csv All good salaries but a small fraction of what they’d be on in the private sector. Same goes for anyone with a degree of seniority.

People talk about gold plated pensions are so very out of date. They don’t really know what they are talking about I think.

Ironic comment, seeing as “gold-plated” essentially means guaranteed for life and index-linked. Which remains true of public sector pensions, even the reformed ones, and even if they are paid to former PT workers who historically earned little.

@Vinvertebrate & yet you saw the outcry over means testing winter fuel?!

A very tiny % of the population have jobs with salaries like those. It's comparing apples with oranges when considering the general working population.

I saw it and rolled my eyes at it tbh. DM uses hers to buy premium bonds for her grandchildren and still heats her bungalow like it’s housing exotic plant species.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Totally agree. I have paid into my pension all my working life, both in employment and self-employment. I've done everything 'right'. Yet as I approach what should be retirement, I realise that it won't give me anything near like enough to live on. At the same time, my work is being decimated by AI, so it's not even as if I can keep working till I drop as that is going to become harder and harder too. The future seems bleak, and very unfair.

I wanted to work on NHS but it appears my degree was not accredited. So lower paid private sector it is for me.

You’re referring to the old style public sector pensions. Current pensions have a retirement at normal pension age

Also that 23% doesn’t go into the persons person pension ‘pot’ as it’s not that sort of pension.

You can’t compare public sector and private pensions, they’re completely different

most public sector pensions are salary average schemes now, not pots. It makes absolutely no difference how much the employer puts in, you still get the same out at the end. And they are expensive to the employee, mine costs me 12.5% of my salary.

I am 48 and mine is linked to national pension age (68). There will be almost no one left at this point who will be retiring at 55 on full pensions

im not saying they’re not still a good deal, but the gap is closing considerably

Just to add a bit of balance. The absolute max nhs pension is half your final salary… IF you’ve worked 40 years full time.
Im a retired nurse. I spent many years part time raising a family (and even now childcare is v difficult if you want to work full time and do shifts). I did work for 41 years.
I left as a band 8 (seniorish and not many will reach that)
My pension is £13k a year.

@Vinvertebrate no government would tinker with their pensions though, I mean they should remove the triple lock today but won’t.

Im not against means testing the state pension tbh.

Just to clarify that I have no problem with people in the public sector or anywhere else getting a good pension. My use of 'unfair' is about the fact that I followed all the advice at every step, but still can't afford to retire.

I can only comment on the NHS but the right to retire at 55 was ended quite some time ago. There will be some nurses / PTs still working with that special status, but not many.
I work for the NHS. My retirement age is 67. I earn just over 30k (part time senior clinician). My pension is certainly not huge. I’ll also very unlikely to stay working in my (or similar) role till retirement age as it’s too physically demanding so I won’t get a full pension.

If they've done a good job and put the years in, they deserve to have a good pension. Schools and exams don't suit everybody and judging someone because of their lack of qualifications says more about you than them!

Private sector pensions are shit for many tbh but it should be a race to the bottom.

I worked in the private sector all my life but did have a DB pension for much of the time however it was changed to DC in later years.
Knowing I wanted to retire early I did everything in my power to facilitate that, paying AVC's when I had the DB pension and additional payments when it changed to DC. By starting these payments early on (early 40's) they made a significant difference, even though the initial payments were quite modest.
As I approached retirement, for the last couple of years I was throwing every penny into it.

My OH has only every had DC & private pensions.
He has always prioritised them (even when colleagues were opting out) and as he got older, again he was throwing much more into them.

You still have plenty of time to make a difference so take it.👍
Good luck.🙂

I was judging them for being dopey and thick. The GCSE’s were just the tangible results that cemented everybody’s opinion.

not be!

I am in the private sector. I have a decent pension, and I haven’t put an awful lot into it. I started it long before I was a high wage earner. The problem isn’t with pension amounts, it’s that people don’t start them early enough. When my daughter turns 18, I will be starting a pension for her with a small amount of money every month.

Also DC pensions can be better for inheritance purposes vs DB schemes

Problem with the DC, auto enrolled schemes is that for many the max tax relief is at basic rate, pots won’t grow massively, they’re tied to a fluctuating stock market and now, well after April next year, if you die with cash in your pot it counts towards your estate for IHT. That adds up to quite a lot of negatives.

plus COL means - and I’m speaking as a single divorced woman in my 50s - cannot afford to top up.