ONS Pension Deciles

FOI/2022/4577

You asked

In the report, Saving for retirement in Great Britain, April 2018 to March 2020, it says:

Between April 2018 and March 2020, the top decile held 64% of all private pension wealth while the bottom five deciles held less than 1%. Median private pension wealth in the top decile was £637,500 compared with £0 in the first three deciles, £1,200 in decile 4 and £7,800 in decile 5.

My question is this: If the median of the top decile was £637,500, then can you tell me what the range of the top decile was? By which I mean the lowest and highest values of pension wealth in the top decile. (this data must be available, otherwise how could you calculate the median figure? It would not be possible to arrive at the median without these numbers. I am certain it would be a very simple and time efficient exercise to provide the lowest-highest range).

Is there a male v female gender split for the top decile? Is it possible to provide a table showing the estimated spread of this top decile by pension wealth bracket. By way of example, perhaps the most compelling and time efficient approach would be: the number of pension holders with pension wealth £500,000-£1,000,000; £1m-2m; £3m-4m; £4m-5m; £5m-6m; £6-7m and so forth until you reach the ceiling of the range. As the pension pots have already been arranged in an order which has allowed the identification of the median, it must be a simple exercise to simply divide them into the brackets I have suggested.

Finally, if the median of the top decile is £637,500, then what is the mean (average)? you must have the relevant data to complete this calculation, and I imagine it would be a very simple exercise to do so.

We said

Thank you for your enquiry,

We have prepared an output of the data that you requested in the accompanying Excel file.

The data are from the Wealth and Assets Survey covering the period April 2018 to March 2020. The Wealth and Assets Survey provides estimates of the value of private pension wealth for private households in Great Britain. We are not able to provide the highest value of the top wealth decile or banded breakdown of the top wealth decile. Unfortunately, breaking down the data to this level would be disclosive owing to the small numbers involved. Therefore, we are unable to release this requested information. Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA), renders it a criminal offence for the Statistics Board (ONS) to release personal information collected for statistical purposes. Personal information is any information held by ONS that would identify a body corporate or an individual. As disclosure is prohibited by another enactment, this information is exempt from release under Section 44(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

Instead, we have provided a breakdown in the spreadsheet with the following categories:

Over £374,500 and less than £1 million

£1 million or over and less than £2 million

£2 million or over and less than £3 million

£3 million or over