Research: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings pension tables

This annual survey from the Office for National Statistics contains information on workplace pensions in the UK. It collects details on all types of pensions, as well as the membership and contribution rates.

Key findings:

• Employee workplace pension scheme membership has increased to 73 per cent in 2017, from 67 per cent in 2016, driven predominantly by increases in membership of occupational defined contribution schemes within the private sector.
• In 2017, 89 per cent of public sector employees were members of a workplace pension scheme compared with 67 per cent of private sector employees, this gap continues to narrow following the introduction of automatic enrolment.
• Between 2016 and 2017, almost half of all public sector employees with a workplace pension scheme contributed seven per cent or more of their pensionable earnings to their workplace pension. Fewer than one in 10 employees contributed less than five per cent.
• In contrast, in 2017 only eight per cent of employees with a workplace pension in the private sector contributed seven per cent or more of their pensionable earnings to their pension, a decrease of one percentage point since 2016.
• Nearly half of all private sector employees with pension membership contributed greater than zero and under two per cent of their pensionable earnings, an increase of six percentage points since 2016. This compares with only one per cent of public sector pension scheme employees contributing at this level.

The statistics predominately relate to information from 2017.