Auto enrolment means UK workplaces must set up a workplace pension, put all their qualifying workers into it and contribute to their pension savings. It’s the law.
The government introduced auto enrolment in 2012 to help more people save for their retirement. Since then around 10 million people have been auto enrolled and are saving for their retirement with their workplace’s help.
Choosing your workplace pension
You’ll need to choose a workplace pension for auto enrolment. It’s not an easy decision and you may want to think about asking a financial adviser to help you.
Remember, whether you choose now:pensions or another pension provider, you’ll be responsible for complying with all the employer duties under auto enrolment legislation.
Here are some of the things you’ll need to check when choosing your workplace pension.
- Does the workplace pension comply with auto enrolment legislation?
- How easy is it to set up and run?
- What systems and processes do you need to put in place for running it?
- What ongoing responsibilities will you have for making sure your workplace pension runs smoothly and efficiently?
- How does the investment offering work?
- Is the workplace pension easy for workers to understand and use?
- How are communications with workers handled?
- Are the charges fair, clear and easy to understand?
Our step by step guide to auto enrolment
Step 1: Assess your workers
You must assess your workers. We’ve broken down the process to make it simpler.
As soon as you employ someone you’ll have auto enrolment duties. This is known as your duties start date.
The first duty you need to carry out is to assess all your workers so you know which ones qualify to be auto enrolled.
Do you want to postpone assessing your workers?
You can postpone assessing your workers for auto enrolment up to three months.
Why postpone?
It could be useful if, for example, you’ve got workers on short-term or temporary contracts who won’t still be working for you after three months or in a probationary period. Or, you want to line your auto enrolment dates up with your company accounting and payroll periods.
The date you postpone to is known as your deferral date.
Postponing auto enrolment doesn’t affect your duties start date.
What you must tell your workers
If you decide to postpone you must tell all your workers, within six weeks from the date after postponement starts, that:
- you’re postponing assessing them for auto enrolment and
- what the deferral date is.
If any of your workers ask to join your pension before the deferral date, you must put them into the pension and start paying in to their pension savings. If an entitled worker asks to join the scheme (unlike a non-eligible jobholder), you are not required to contribute – although you can choose to do so.
Assessment question 1: age
Is the worker aged between 22 and State Pension age?
Yes
You may need to auto enrol them.
State Pension age can be hard to tell, as different people have different State Pension ages. You’ll need to check the worker’s date of birth and use the State Pension age calculator on the government website to find out their State Pension age.
No
You don’t need to auto enrol them, but they can ask to join your pension. If an entitled worker asks to join the scheme (unlike a non-eligible jobholder), you are not required to contribute – although you can choose to do so.
Assessment question 2: earnings
Does the worker earn more than £10,000 a year, £833 a month or £192 a week?
Yes
The worker is an eligible jobholder. You’ll need to auto enrol them and pay contributions to their pension savings.
No
If your worker is aged 16-74 and earns less than £10,000 a year, £833 a month or £192 a week, but more than the lower limit for qualifying earnings (£6,240 a year, £520 a month or £120 a week in 2025 to 2026) they are a non-eligible jobholder.
You don’t have to auto enrol them, but they can ask to join (opt-in to) the pension. You’ll need to put them in and pay contributions to their pension savings.
If your worker is aged 16-74 and earns less than the lower limit for qualifying earnings (£6,240 a year, £520 a month or £120 a week in 2025 to 2026)they’re an entitled worker.
You don’t have to auto enrol them, but if they ask to join you must put them into a pension. And you don’t have to pay in to their pension savings.
Assessing your workers at a glance
| Type of worker | Eligible jobholder | Non-eligible jobholder | Entitled worker |
| Age | 22-State Pension age | 16-74 | 16-74 |
| Earns | £10,000 a year £833 a month £192 a week | £6,240-£10,000 £520-£833 £192-£120 | Below £6,240 a year £520 a month £120 a week |
| Auto enrolment? | Must be auto enrolled | Can ask to opt-in | Can ask to join |
| Workplace contributions? | Workplace contributions required | Workplace contributions required | Workplace contributions not required |
Step 2: Enrolling workers who qualify
To enrol your workers, upload and submit a pension data file containing the workers’ details.
You’ll need to set up your payroll function to take contributions from your workers’ pay each month. You’ll also need to set up a Direct Debit to pay the contributions into now:pensions.
Find out more at How do you set up your first payroll in now:u?
Step 3: Sending communications to your workers
You have a duty to tell your workers how auto enrolment affects them and what their choices are. So you’ll need to send them communications.
We can make sure you comply with your duties by emailing communications to your workers on your behalf.
Our preferred way to send communications to your workers is to email them directly. To do this, we’ll need up-to-date email addresses for all your workers.
This is the easiest option for you, as all you have to do is include your workers’ email addresses in your pension data file and keep them up to date. We’ll send the communications automatically within the statutory timescales.
Find out more at Managing your employee communications.
Step 4: Declaring to TPR
The final step of auto enrolment is to declare to The Pensions Regulator (TPR) that you’ve met your auto enrolment duties. You must do this within five months of your workplace pension’s start date.
You can make your declaration online at TPR’s website. TPR has produced a checklist with all the information you need to give and where you can find it.
Step 5: Processing opt-outs and other changes
In each pay period you’ll need to check whether any workers have opted out within a month of being enrolled, or taken any other actions. Find out more about this at How to update your payroll for workers’ actions.
You’ll need to update your payroll with the actions your workers have taken so the changes are included in your next pension data file.
If any workers have opted out within the one-month deadline, you’ll need to refund their contributions.
You must not encourage workers to opt out, or suggest they’ll get some sort of reward if they do. This is known as ‘inducement’ and is illegal.
Step 6: Ongoing assessment
In each pay period you will need to re-assess workers who haven’t previously been auto enrolled to check whether they now qualify to be auto enrolled.
If they do, you’ll need to auto enrol them.
Step 7: Re-enrolling workers who have opted out
Every three years you’ll need to re-assess workers who have opted out of your workplace pension and re-enrol them if they qualify.
Find out more at Re-enrolment explained.
