3m pension pots sit unclaimed in the UK, each worth £6,000 on average
New research puts the number of lost pensions at 3m, with savers under 55 most affected, as providers race to connect to the new pensions dashboard.
3 million pots, £6,000 average
Around 3 million pension pots in the UK are currently classed as “lost”, meaning the provider has no way of contacting the person who owns the money, according to research published this month by the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI). The average lost pot is estimated to hold around £6,000. Most of the lost pots belong to people under 55, with the PPI flagging younger savers as particularly at risk because they are more likely to change jobs frequently, work on fixed-term contracts or move house.
The scale of the problem stems partly from how workplace pensions operate. Since automatic enrolment began, most employees are signed up to a scheme by their employer, but moving jobs repeatedly means many people build up several small pots that are easy to lose track of.
Five reasons a pot may not exist at all
Consumer group Which? says that before assuming a pension has gone missing, savers should consider whether one was ever set up. Five circumstances explain why a pension search might turn up nothing:
Jobs held before 2012, when automatic enrolment began, may never have included a pension. The Department for Work and Pensions says only 47% of employees were paying into a workplace pension when the rules came into force, compared with 82% now.
Current rules only require employers to enrol staff who are over 22 and earning at least £10,000 a year, so some jobs or earnings levels may fall outside the scheme.
Savers may have actively opted out, for example to free up cash for living costs. DWP figures show around one in 10 new pension savers opted out in 2025-26.
Some people may have received a refund of their contributions rather than a pension. According to MoneyHelper, refunds could apply to those who left a job before April 1975, left between April 1975 and April 1988 while under 26 or with under five years’ service, or left after April 1988 with under two years’ service.
Self-employed and freelance workers are not covered by automatic enrolment at all, since the rules apply only to employees.
Tracing options and a coming dashboard
Anyone who believes they do have a lost pot can contact former employers, use the government’s free pension tracing service, or use third-party tools such as a provider’s “find and combine” search. Which? staff who shared their own searches described gaps caused by missing paperwork and the phased rollout of automatic enrolment, which only became compulsory for small employers between 2015 and 2017.
The PPI notes that pension schemes are under growing pressure to trace lost members ahead of the launch of pensions dashboards, expected in 2027-28, which will bring together all of a saver’s pension information in one place. Pension providers have until the end of this month to connect their records to the dashboard system. Around 90% of records are currently connected, a figure expected to rise to 96% by the deadline.
What happens next
Savers are not being told how to act, but the underlying data shows the deadline for providers to link up to the dashboard system falls this month, with full connection expected to reach 96% shortly afterwards. Until the dashboard launches in 2027-28, anyone wanting to establish whether a pension exists can use the government’s tracing service or approach former employers and providers directly.