Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings Pension Tables: 2014 Provisional Results

• Workplace pension scheme membership has increased to 59% in 2014, from 50% in 2013, driven by increases in membership of occupational defined contribution and group personal and group stakeholder schemes.The increase is likely to be driven by automatic enrolment.
• Occupational defined benefit pensions schemes represented less than half (49%) of total workplace pension membership in 2014, for the first time since the series began in 1997.
• Pension membership increased in all age groups in 2014 compared with 2013, with the largest increase (17 percentage points, to 53%) in the age group 22-29.
• In the private sector, 33% of employees with workplace pensions made contributions of greater than zero but under 2% compared with 11% of employees in 2013. The increase is likely to be driven by automatic enrolment.
• The proportion of employees in the private sector receiving employer contributions of greater than zero and under 4% was 43% in 2014, compared with 22% in 2013. The increase may be explained by new members who have been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension with lower initial employer contributions until the phasing of contributions is completed in 2018.

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings is a key source of information on workplace pensions in the UK as it collects information on all types of workplace pension: occupational pension schemes, group personal pensions and group stakeholder pensions. The survey results are used widely in order to analyse pension participation and to monitor the impacts of pension reforms.

ASHE collects information on employee membership of the current employer’s workplace pension scheme. This does not include preserved rights in any former employer’s pension scheme or pensions paid by former employers.

ASHE collects information from employers on employee jobs, although they are referred to in this bulletin as ‘employees’. For further information on ASHE please see the Background notes section.

The Pensions Act 2008 put in place a framework for workplace pension reform designed to increase private pension saving in the UK. This framework was amended slightly by the Pensions Acts 2011 and 2014. One of the key reforms was that, from October 2012, all eligible employees are to be automatically enrolled into a qualifying workplace pension scheme.

Automatic enrolment was introduced for all employees, aged between 22 and the state pension age, who earn more than £8,105 per year (£10,000 from April 2014) and are not participating in a workplace pension scheme.¹

Automatic enrolment is being introduced in stages, based on the size of the employers’ PAYE scheme on 1 April 2012. Automatic enrolment started in October 2012 for employers with over 120,000 employees, with staged roll-out to all employers by 2018.²

Under automatic enrolment employers select a pension scheme for their employees. Employers have a duty to enrol all eligible employees into a pension scheme meeting the qualifying requirements set out within the Pensions Acts 2008 and 2011 and to make contributions to this scheme on their employees’ behalf. Workers are able to opt out of their employer’s scheme if they wish but, if they are still eligible, they will be re-enrolled after a three year period.

In order to be considered a qualifying pension scheme, schemes will eventually have to make minimum contributions of 8% of an employee’s qualifying earnings, of which at least 3% must come from the employer. However, there is a phasing in period, during which lower contributions are allowed. From October 2012 to September 2017 the minimum contribution is 2% of an employee’s qualifying earnings of which at least 1% must come from the employer.

The Pensions Act 2008 created the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST), a new, trust-based Defined Contribution (DC) pension scheme, to assist employers with pension provision. Other separate trust-based arrangements, known as master trusts (see Glossary (198.9 Kb Pdf) ), have also been set up to facilitate automatic enrolment. Examples of these include NOW: Pensions and The People’s Pension.

The Pensions Act 2011 introduced: an annual review of the automatic enrolment earnings trigger; an annual review of the upper or lower limits of the qualifying earnings band; and an optional waiting period of up to three months before an employee must be automatically enrolled into a workplace pension.

These reforms represent a major change in the UK private pension system, aiming to extend coverage to the millions of employees without a private pension, in particular those in the target market of moderate to low earners.

Notes for Workplace pension reforms

1. For more information about automatic enrolment see: Department for Work and Pensions Automatic Enrolment Evaluation report 2014.
2. The reference date for the 2014 data in this bulletin is 9 April. Employers with 250 or more employees should have automatically enrolled their eligible employees when the data was collected. Employers with between 50 and 249 employees are expected to enrol their eligible employees from 1 April 2014, so a limited number may be included in the 2014 data. It is also possible for employers to postpone or bring forward their staging dates. For a timetable of staging dates see: automatic enrolment timetable of starting dates.

Figure 1 shows pension membership by pension type between 1997 and 2014. In 2014, the proportion of employees1 who belonged to a workplace pension was 59%, the highest since 1997 when the series began. In 1997, 55% of employees belonged to a workplace pension scheme. In 2012, prior to the implementation of workplace pension reforms, 47% of employees belonged to a workplace pension scheme.

Although membership was 59% overall in 2014, there were differences between sectors:

• 87% of public sector employees were members of a workplace pension scheme, up from 85% in 2013; and
• 49% of private sector employees were members of a workplace pension scheme, up from 36% in 2013.

The overall increase in workplace pension membership between 2013 and 2014 is driven by increases in occupational Defined Contribution (DC) pension schemes and group personal2 and group stakeholder pension schemes. Membership of occupational Defined Benefit (DB) pension schemes remained constant at 29% between 2013 and 2014. Membership of occupational DC pension schemes increased from 8% in 2013, to 14% of all employees in 2014. Membership of group personal and stakeholder pensions schemes2 was 16% in 2014, compared with 12% in 2013.

Figure 1: Proportion of employees with workplace pensions: by type of pension, 1997 to 2014

Source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) - Office for National Statistics

Figure 2: Proportion of employees with workplace pensions by type of pension, 2014

Source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) - Office for National Statistics

Notes:

1. The Occupational defined contribution category includes employees who have pensions with the National Employer Savings Trust (NEST).
2. Data for Group Self-Invested Personal Pensions (GSIPP) are included within the category Group Personal Pensions (GPP).
3. Percentages may not sum to 100% due to rounding.

Figure 2 shows the breakdown of employees with a workplace pension by pension type. Occupational defined benefit remained the largest category of workplace pension in 2014 despite large increases in occupational defined contribution, group personal and group stakeholder pension membership.

In 2014, for the first time since 1997, occupational defined benefit pension schemes represented less than half (49%) of total workplace pension membership in the United Kingdom.

Workplace pension participation differs between the public and private sectors. Table 3 shows that in 2014, 96% of public sector employees with a workplace pension had an occupational defined benefit pension. In the private sector, only 18% of employees with a workplace pension were in a defined benefit scheme. Conversely, defined contribution pensions (whether occupational, group personal or group stakeholder), were more common in the private sector.

Notes for Workplace pension scheme membership

1. ASHE collects information from employers on employee jobs. Although they are referred to in this bulletin as ‘employees’, individuals may hold more than one job.
2. Data for Group Self-Invested Personal Pensions (GSIPP) are included within the category Group Personal Pensions (GPP) throughout this bulletin.

Age is a key factor affecting workplace pension scheme membership. Figure 4 shows the proportion of employees with a workplace pension in 2014:

• employees under 30 are less likely to be members of a workplace pension scheme than employees in all other age groups, except 65 and over;

• membership in the 16-21 age group is particularly low at 12%;

• membership falls in the age groups around state pension age because many employees in these age groups are likely to be no longer contributing to pensions

There are large differences in pension membership between 2013 and 2014:

• increases in pension membership have been seen in all age groups since 2013, with the largest increase in the age group 22-29 at 17 percentage points;

• the increases are driven by increases in occupational defined contribution and group personal and group stakeholder pension schemes;

• increases were also seen in the age group 16-21. This age group is not directly affected by the workplace pension reforms.

Workplace pension participation also varies by working pattern (full-time or part-time) and gender, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5 shows that for full-time employees:

• in the public sector, 92% of male and 91% of female employees had a workplace pension;

• in the private sector, the proportion of male employees with a workplace pension was 59%, compared with 57% for female employees.

For part-time employees the gap between males and females was greater, with a higher proportion of women belonging to a workplace pension in both sectors:

• in the public sector 79% of part-time female employees were members compared with 65% of part-time male employees;

• in the private sector 27% of part-time female employees were members compared with 22% of part-time male employees.

Compared to 2013, the highest growth in the proportion of employees with workplace pensions was for full-time female employees in the private sector at 17 percentage points. However, increases were also seen for part-time workers in the private sector. Workplace pension membership of part-time male employees saw a 10 percentage point increase from 12% in 2013, to 22% in 2014. For females, the increase was 7 percentage points from 20% in 2013, to 27% in 2014.

Figure 6 shows the proportion of full-time employees with a pension by sector and gross weekly earnings band. There is a strong relationship between earnings and workplace pension scheme membership. This is particularly true in the private sector, where full-time employees with earnings of £600 per week and over are three times more likely to be members of a workplace pension scheme than those earning less than £100 per week.

There has been an increase in pension membership in every earnings band for full time employees in the private sector in 2014. The largest increases are for those earning between £200 and £500, with all three earnings bands seeing increases of around 20 percentage points since 2013. In the public sector, the largest increases were for those full-time employees earning less than £100 a week, increasing from 26% in 2013, to 47% in 2014.

Notes for membership by age, working pattern, gender and earnings

1. ASHE collects information from employers on employee jobs. Although they are referred to in this bulletin as ‘employees’, individuals may hold more than one job.

Membership of a workplace pension is related to the employee’s occupation. Figure 7 shows the proportion of all employees with a workplace pension by occupation in 2014:

those in professional occupations are most likely to have a pension, 80% in 2014;

those in elementary occupations are least likely to have a pension, 39% in 2014. Elementary occupations perform mostly routine tasks, often requiring the use of hand-held tools and some physical effort;

employees in process, plant and machine operative occupations had the largest increase in workplace pension membership from 34% in 2013, to 52% in 2014.

Figure 8 shows the proportion of employees with a pension by size of employer (measured by number of employees) in 2014. In general, the larger the employer the higher the proportion of employees with a workplace pension.

The largest increases in employee pension membership in 2014 were in the larger employers as may have been expected due to the staged introduction of automatic enrolment:

• in the private sector, compared with 2013, there were increases of around 30 percentage points for employers with 500-999 and 1000-4999 employees, to 74% and 75% respectively;

• in the public sector, employers with 500-999 employees saw the largest increases in workplace pension membership from 81% in 2013, to 88% in 2014.

Source: Source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) - Office for National Statistics

Notes:

1. The public and private sectors are classified using the legal status from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (see Definitions).
2. The proportion of public sector employees where employer size is between 1 and 12 employees has been suppressed on quality grounds.

There is a weak relationship between the region where the employer is located and the proportion of employees with a workplace pension (Figure 9). In the private sector, there are some larger differences:

• membership was highest in the London (56%);

• membership was lowest in the South West (46%).

In the private sector, each region saw a greater than 10 percentage point increase in pension membership in 2014 compared with 2013. However, there was some variation between regions:

the North East saw the largest increase in private pension membership from 33% in 2013 to 51% in 2014; membership in the South West had the smallest increase of 11 percentage points to 46% in 2014, and thus became the region with lowest private pension membership. Wales was lowest in 2013.

Notes for Membership by occupation, size of employer and region

1. ASHE collects information from employers on employee jobs, although they are referred to in this bulletin as ‘employees’, individuals may hold more than one job.

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) also collects information on workplace pension contribution rates. Employee and employer contribution rate bands are shown by sector (Figures 10 and 11) and by pension type (Figures 12 and 13).

Contribution rates by age, occupation, industry and employer size, along with contracting out status for defined benefit schemes, are available in the reference tables published as part of this release.

The minimum contribution rates required in order that a pension scheme may qualify for automatic enrolment are discussed in the section workplace pension reforms.

Contribution rates for employees and employers tend to be higher in the public sector as the majority of pension schemes are defined benefit in type. In the private sector, where contribution rates tend to be lower, defined benefit pensions are less common.

Figure 10 shows the proportion of employees1 in each employee contribution rate band for employees with workplace pensions in the public and private sectors in 2014:

• 61% of employees in the public sector and 17% in the private sector contributed 6% or more of pensionable earnings;

• 2% of employees in the public sector and 10% in the private sector did not contribute to their pension (zero contributions). In 2013, 14% of private sector employees did not contribute to their workplace pension;

• in the private sector, 33% of employees with workplace pensions made contributions of greater than zero but under 2%, compared with 11% in 2013. The increase in the proportion of employees in this contribution band is likely to be driven by employees who have been automatically enrolled into their workplace pension scheme.

Figure 11 shows the proportion of employees in each employer contribution rate band for all employees with workplace pensions in the public and private sectors in 2014:

• half (51%) of employees in the public sector and 7% of those in the private sector received employer contributions of between 12% and 15% of employees’ pensionable earnings;

• 68% of employees in the private sector received employer contributions of less than 8% of employees’ pensionable earnings, compared with 4% in the public sector;

• the proportion of employees in the private sector receiving employer contributions of greater than zero and under 4% was 43% in 2014, compared with 22% in 2013. The increase may be explained by new members who have been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension with low initial employer contributions until the phasing of contributions is completed in 2018.

Contribution rates for both employees and employers tend to be higher for defined benefit pension schemes.

Figure 12 shows the proportion of employees in each employee contribution rate band for employees with workplace pensions by pension type, in 2014:

• 85% of employees in occupational defined benefit schemes contributed over 5% of their pensionable earnings, compared with 18% of those in defined contribution schemes and 20% of those with group personal and group stakeholder pensions1;

• 46% of employees with defined contribution pensions schemes contributed greater than zero but under 2% of pensionable earnings in 2014, compared with 17% of employees in 2013;

• 31% of employees with a group personal or group stakeholder pension contributed greater than zero but under 2% of pensionable earnings in 2014, compared with 9% of employees in 2013.

Figure 13 shows the proportion of employees in each employer contribution rate band, for all employees with workplace pensions, by pension type. In 2014:

• 44% of employees with occupational defined benefit workplace pension schemes received contributions of 15% or more of their pensionable earnings, compared with 5% of those with defined contribution pensions and 3% of those with group personal or stakeholder pensions;

• 81% of employees with group personal or stakeholder pensions received contributions of less than 8% of their pensionable earning, compared with 75% of those with occupational defined contribution pension and 7% of those with defined benefit pensions;

• 52% of those with occupational defined contribution pension schemes received contributions of greater than zero but under 4% of pensionable earnings compared with 46% of those with group personal or stakeholder and 3% of those with occupational defined contribution pension schemes;

• in 2013, 24% of those with occupational defined contribution pension schemes received contributions of greater than zero but under 4% of pensionable earnings increasing to 52% in 2014.

Notes for Contributions to workplace pensions

1. Data for Group Self-Invested Personal Pensions (GSIPP) are included within the category Group Personal Pensions (GPP) throughout this bulletin.