More than three million UK pension pots, with an average value of around £6,000 each, are thought to be lost, but savers can take steps now to track down their retirement cash. Research from the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) shows the total value of lost pensions now stands at £18.7billion.
Pension pots can become lost when people change jobs, or if they move address and forget to update their pension provider. The majority of lost pots - around 2.5 million - are held by people aged under 55. The average lost pot for under-55s is worth £5,250, while for those aged 55 to 74 the amount is almost double at £10,710.
Gender gap in lost savings
The value of lost pots for women is slightly lower than for men, at around £5,370 compared with £6,830.
Dr Suzy Morrissey, deputy director of the Pensions Policy Institute, said: “As the PPI’s new figures show, lost pension pots remain a significant issue for savers, providers and policymakers.”
“At a time when pensions policy decision-making could particularly impact tomorrow’s retirement adequacy challenges, the PPI is proud to provide an updated examination of this multi-billion pound policy issue potentially affecting millions of individuals.”
Dashboard to help tackle problem
Oliver Morley, chief executive of the Money and Pensions Service, said: “With around 2.5 million lost pensions belonging to people aged under 55, there is a need to ensure no one is missing savings for the retirement they want.”
“The MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard being developed by MaPS, expected to launch in financial year 2027-28, will help tackle this problem. As well as a single overview of pensions in one place, a dashboard will show pensions that people may have lost touch with. While this is only part of the important work to ensure people have the retirement savings they need, it is a vital part of making planning for later life easier.”
Tom Selby, public policy director at AJ Bell, said: “Automatic enrolment has been one of the great public policy successes of recent decades, ensuring millions of employees are building at least some level of pension savings for retirement. But as people move jobs throughout their working lives, they often leave old workplace pensions behind, and over time it’s easy to lose track of them.”
Mr Selby added: “While the average pot value may not sound life-changing on its own, £6,000 can make a significant difference to someone’s retirement income. That figure rises to £10,000 among those aged over 55 – people who will likely be thinking about retirement in the not-too-distant future – and that is just an average, meaning many will hold much larger forgotten sums.”
How to find lost pensions
National Pensions Tracing Day is on October 25, so now could be a good time to track down lost retirement pots. If you know the name of your previous employer, you can use the free Pension Tracing Service to help you find your pension pots. This service will not tell you whether you definitely have a pension, or how much it could be worth, but it will provide the contact details of the pension scheme administrator or your previous employer.
Gretel is another free service that can help find lost pensions. It works by running a ‘soft search’ on your credit report to find any previous addresses, before using this data to find missing pensions. You can add more information, such as your National Insurance number, to improve search results.
Millions of people will also soon have access to a new Government pensions dashboard, which will show all pension pots in one place. All pension providers and schemes in scope of the legislation must be connected to the dashboard by October 31, 2026. However, the service is not expected to be made available to the public until 2027 or 2028.
