Auto enrolment was introduced after the UK government found many people had very small, or no, pension savings other than the State Pension.

It’s designed to make sure workplaces provide workplace pensions that help more people save for their retirement.

Yes. If you qualify. Your workplace is required by law to enrol you.

You don’t have to pay into now:pensions. You can ask to stop paying in at any time. But if you do, you’ll miss out on these things.

• The chance to build up pension savings for your future.
• Extra money from your workplace – at least 3% of your qualifying earnings.
• Tax relief – you don’t pay tax on money you put into pension savings. The tax you would have paid goes in to your pension savings instead.

As long as you tell us you want to stop paying in during the 1 month period shown in your enrolment letter, you will be treated as if you had never been in the pension.

In every pay period, your workplace will check whether you qualify for auto enrolment. They will check whether you:

• normally work in the UK
• are aged between 22 and State Pension age
• earn more than £10,000 a year (£833 a month or £192 a week) from one job.

If you qualify, your workplace will enrol you in now:pensions. You and your workplace will start paying in to your pension savings. You’ll get a welcome email confirming you’ve been auto enrolled, what this means and what you can do. It will also explain how to log in to your now:pensions account and how to download the now:u app.

You qualify to be auto enrolled if you:

• are aged between 22 and State Pension age
• normally work in the UK
• earn more than £10,000 a year (£833 a month or £192 a week) from one job.

This makes you an ‘eligible jobholder’.

Yes. As long as you’re aged between 16 and 74, you can ask to join your workplace pension scheme. Your workplace must put you in and pay in to your pension savings (although if you earn less than £6,240 a year they don’t have to pay in).

It’s possible you didn’t meet the conditions for auto enrolment before. For example, you might not have been earning the right amount to qualify.

Or, your workplace might have postponed assessing you for auto enrolment. They’re allowed to do this for up to three months after you first qualify. After that they must enrol you immediately if you qualify. If you think you should have been enrolled sooner, you should ask your workplace.

Auto enrolment means that, as long as you qualify, your workplace must put you into a pension without you asking. You and your workplace pay money in to build up pension savings for you.  

To qualify to be auto enrolled, you must: 

• normally work in the UK
• be between 22 and State Pension age
• earn more than £10,000 a year (£833 a month or £192 a week) from one job

Auto enrolment was introduced in 2012 to get more people saving for their retirement, after the government found many people had few or no pension savings other than the State Pension.  

Since it was introduced, over 10 million people have been enrolled into a pension and started saving for their retirement with their workplace’s help.     

Find out more about auto enrolment.

You’re an entitled jobholder if you’re:

• aged between 16 and 74
• normally working in the UK
• earning £6,240 or less a year.

You won’t be auto enrolled but you can ask your workplace to put you into their workplace pension.

However, the law does not require your workplace to pay into the pension until you earn more than £6,240 a year (£520 a month or £120 a week).

Your employer can postpone auto enrolling you into their workplace pension scheme for up to three months after you first qualify. If they decide to do this, we’ll write to tell you that your auto enrolment has been postponed until your deferral date. This is the date when you’ll be auto enrolled if you qualify.

If you want to join now:pensions before your deferral date, you can join using now:u or ask your workplace to put you in.