Workplace pensions – employers’ obligations

    All employers will have to provide workers with a workplace pension scheme by law over the next few years. The biggest employers started doing this in October 2012. This is called ‘automatic enrolment’.

    When your business must start doing this (called a ‘staging date’) depends on how many people you have on your payroll. Check your business’ staging date with The Pensions Regulator.

    If you don’t already offer workers a workplace pension scheme, you must set one up before your business’ staging date.

    If you already have a workplace pension scheme, check if you can use it for automatic enrolment.

    You must enrol into the scheme all workers who:

    • are aged between 22 and the State Pension age
    • earn at least £10,000 a year
    • work in the UK

    You must make an employer’s contribution to the pension scheme for those workers.

    Guidance for employers

    The Pensions Regulator has more information for employers about automatic enrolment.

    If you offer access to a stakeholder pension scheme, you must carry on taking workers’ contributions from their pay and send them to the scheme if the worker wants you to.