Pension providers, investment platforms and fund managers: a complete guide

Most people saving for retirement never meet the companies looking after their money. A pension is looked after by a chain of different firms: a pension provider that holds the pot and puts your money into investments, sometimes an investment platform that gives you an account to choose and manage those investments, and fund managers who run the funds the money is invested in. The money you pay into a personal pension is put into investments, such as shares, by the pension provider¹.

The rules that govern these firms are changing in ways that will affect savers. Workplace pension providers and master trusts will be required to hold at least £25 billion in assets under management by 2030, which is expected to drive mergers between schemes². From 6 April 2029, a £2,000 annual cap will apply to the National Insurance exemption for pension contributions made through salary sacrifice, and the government estimates 44% of employees using salary sacrifice for pensions would be impacted³. Meanwhile the State Pension age is rising from 66 to 67 between April 2026 and March 2028⁴.

What pension providers, investment platforms and fund managers each do

A pension provider is the firm that actually runs your pension. It collects contributions, holds the pot, invests the money and deals with you when you want information or to take an income. The money you pay into a personal pension is put into investments, such as shares, by the pension provider¹. Providers of personal pensions include banks, building societies and life insurance companies⁸.

An investment platform sits between you and the investments. It is the online account you log into, where you can see your pension, choose funds and make changes. Platforms such as AJ Bell, Hargreaves Lansdown, Fidelity and Interactive Investor offer Sipps and ready-made portfolios of funds⁵. Aegon describes itself as the UK's largest investment platform⁹.

Fund managers are the firms that run the individual funds your money is invested in. They decide what shares or other assets a fund holds, within the rules of that fund. You do not deal with them directly: your relationship is with the provider or platform, and the fund managers work behind the scenes. In a workplace pension, fees are capped at 0.75%, which includes the fees charged by the pension providers and those charged by the fund managers⁵.

If you do not want to choose investments at all, you do not have to. All pension providers have to offer a fund that meets the needs of most people, and this is where your money will be automatically invested if you make no choice¹⁰. This is often called the default fund.

Keeping track of pensions held with different firms should become easier. Pensions dashboards are online tools where people can access their pension information, and in the UK they will show information about pensions from different providers and the State Pension securely and in one place¹¹. The Pensions Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority will regulate the pension schemes and providers sharing data with dashboards¹¹.

Well-known names in the UK pensions market

The names you are most likely to come across depend on the kind of pension you have. For a workplace pension, your employer chooses the pension provider to invest your pension contributions¹², so the name on your annual statement is likely to be a large insurer-based provider such as Aviva, Scottish Widows or Legal & General, or a master trust such as Nest, names that appear widely across UK workplace schemes.

For a pension you arrange yourself, the names tend to come from the platform world. Investment platforms such as AJ Bell, Hargreaves Lansdown, Fidelity and Interactive Investor offer Sipps and ready-made portfolios of funds⁵. Aegon describes itself as the UK's largest investment platform⁹. These firms are best understood as places where you hold and manage a pension, rather than firms that run the underlying funds themselves.

Stakeholder pensions, a type of money purchase pension, are provided by a bank, building society or insurance company, and trade unions may also offer them to members¹³. The Pensions Regulator publishes a register of stakeholder schemes, which is one way to check a firm you have not heard of¹⁴.

Pension provider or investment platform: how each one works for you

A personal pension is one that you arrange yourself: you choose the provider and decide how your contributions will be paid, and you might do this through an independent financial adviser¹⁶. You can either make regular or individual lump sum payments to a pension provider¹. Some employers offer personal pensions as workplace pensions, in which case the employer selects the provider but the pension works much like one you arranged yourself¹.

What you eventually get from a defined contribution pension depends on three things: how much has been paid in, how the fund's investments have performed (they can go up or down), and how you decide to take your money¹. The provider's job is to invest the money according to your choices, keep records, and pay out when the time comes.

When you come to take money from a pension and keep the rest invested, you have choices about who makes the investment decisions. You can ask your provider to choose for you based on your preferences, and these ready-made options are called investment pathways; you can make your own investment choices; or a financial adviser can manage the investments for you¹⁷.

The practical differences between a traditional provider and a platform are mostly about control and cost structure:

Neither route is inherently better. A platform tends to suit someone comfortable making or at least overseeing investment decisions; a provider-led arrangement, including a default fund, suits someone who wants the decisions made for them. The types of pension and investment provider are covered in more detail elsewhere on the site, as are personal pension and SIPP providers and workplace pension providers and master trusts.

Workplace pensions and master trusts: a £25bn minimum size by 2030

In a defined contribution workplace pension scheme, your employer chooses a pension provider to invest your pension contributions¹². Many employers now use a master trust, a large multi-employer scheme run by trustees, rather than a scheme of their own. The workplace pensions and master trusts guides explain how these work in detail.

The market is set to consolidate. The government has said it will legislate, through the Pension Schemes Bill, to require that providers and master trusts managing money for multiple employers hold £25 billion in assets under management by 2030². Smaller schemes can take a transition pathway if they can demonstrate they will have at least £10 billion in assets under management in an arrangement by 2030, with a credible plan to have £25 billion by 2035². The scale of the system this applies to is large: over £2 trillion of assets are managed by the UK's workplace pensions system².

For an individual saver, a merger or consolidation does not mean losing your pot. If your employer merges with or is taken over by another and you stay in employment, the new employer must provide access to a replacement pension that meets or exceeds the government's standards for workplace pensions, give you information about the new scheme, and enrol you automatically if you are eligible¹². Your existing savings remain yours, and the protections around workplace pension charges and the charge cap continue to apply.

Fees in workplace pensions are capped at 0.75%, which includes the fees charged by the pension providers and those charged by the fund managers⁵. The policy aim behind the size requirements is that larger schemes can invest in a wider range of assets and negotiate better value; the effect for savers is likely to be fewer, bigger schemes over the next few years.

Salary sacrifice contributions: a £2,000 cap from April 2029

Salary sacrifice is an arrangement where you give up part of your salary and your employer pays it into your pension instead. Because the contribution counts as an employer payment rather than your salary, it has been exempt from National Insurance contributions. That is changing.

From 6 April 2029, only the first £2,000 per annum of employer pension contributions made via salary sacrifice by each employee will be exempt from National Insurance contributions; contributions above that threshold will be subject to employer and employee NICs at existing rates¹⁸. The government describes the measure as removing the Optional Remuneration Arrangements excluded exemption for employer pension contributions for Class 1 National Insurance contributions, where arrangements exceed the annual £2,000 cap³. The amount exempt from NICs will be capped at £2,000 a year from April 2029¹⁹.

The government's impact assessment gives a sense of how many people this touches:

• 44% of employees using salary sacrifice for pensions would be impacted by the measure, while 56%, around 4.3 million people, are fully protected by the £2,000 threshold³.
• Of those using salary sacrifice, 3.3 million sacrifice more than £2,000 of salary or bonuses³.
• The measure is expected to have a significant impact on 290,000 employers who operate salary sacrifice arrangements for pension contributions³.
• The continuing average annual administrative impact is put at £30 million³.

Whether your take-home pay changes depends on how your employer responds to the new charge, and the details of the design and operation of the £2,000 limit will be set out in secondary legislation in due course³. The profile of those affected is uneven: employees aged 31 to 50 make up an estimated 52% of those with salary sacrifice contributions, overrepresented against 44% of the employee population, and males are estimated at 59% of those making salary sacrifice pension contributions, against 50% of the UK adult population³.

If you pay into a pension this way, it is worth knowing the change is coming and asking your employer how they intend to handle it. The salary sacrifice guide explains how the arrangement works, and salary sacrifice vs relief at source compares it with the alternative.

The State Pension alongside your own savings: 67 by April 2028

Your own pension, whether workplace or personal, sits alongside the State Pension, and the age at which the State Pension arrives is on the move. State Pension age is increasing⁸.

The timetable so far: the State Pension age was raised above 65 for both men and women in December 2018, and both men's and women's State Pension age reached 66 in October 2020²¹. Under the Pensions Act 2014, State Pension age will gradually increase from 66 to 67 between 2026 and 2028²¹. Between April 2026 and March 2028, the State Pension age is rising from 66 to 67⁴, and it will reach 67 by April 2028²².

The rise does not stop there. If you were born between 6 April 1977 and 5 April 1978, you will reach State Pension age between age 67 and 68, on a set date depending on your date of birth²³. In other words, the move towards a State Pension age of 68 is already written into the schedule for people now in their late forties.

Because the State Pension age and the age at which you can access private pensions do not move in step, planning matters. You can check your State Pension forecast online, and if you have not reached State Pension age you can contact the Future Pension Centre to find out whether you would benefit from paying voluntary National Insurance contributions²⁴. If you have reached State Pension age, contact the Pension Service instead²⁴. In Northern Ireland, the contact points differ: if you are over State Pension age you can contact the Northern Ireland Pension Centre, and if you are under it you can use the Check your State Pension forecast service²⁵.

The State Pension age guide has the full timetable, and how to check your State Pension forecast explains the forecast service. If a gap between finishing work and reaching State Pension age is a concern, a parliamentary inquiry has been launched on support for people in that pre-pension income gap²⁶.

How to start, move or combine pensions

Starting a pension is straightforward in principle: for a workplace pension you are enrolled by your employer under automatic enrolment, and for a personal pension you choose a provider and decide how your contributions will be paid¹⁶. Because there are no comparison sites for personal pensions, you either search and compare options yourself or pay a financial adviser¹⁵.

Moving a pension from one provider to another, or combining several pots, follows a recognisable sequence. To transfer your pension, you usually need to check your current scheme allows transfers out, make sure you will not lose any benefits, decide which scheme to transfer into, check if you need to pay for financial advice, ask your current provider for a transfer value, and then ask the new scheme to start the transfer²⁷.

The "lost benefits" step deserves attention. Older pensions can carry guarantees, such as protected tax-free cash or guaranteed annuity rates, that a transfer would extinguish. Transfers out of defined benefit and final salary pensions carry particular risks and, in some cases, a legal requirement to take advice, covered in transferring out of a final salary pension and when advice is required to transfer.

You can get free, impartial information about transferring your pension from official sources²⁸, and free, impartial money and pensions guidance is available from MoneyHelper²⁹. When you come to take your money, a new official guide, "How to take your pension: a step-by-step guide", focuses on defined contribution pensions and is distributed by pension providers; it replaces the earlier publication "Your pension: your choices"⁹.

Pensions can also need to be found and, sometimes, shared. If you have lost track of old pots, the Pension Tracing Service can help. On divorce or dissolution, pensions can form part of the settlement, and the MoneyHelper pensions and divorce appointment service can guide you on your next steps, including where to find additional help and how to access regulated financial advice if needed³⁰. Only around four in ten people are aware that pensions can be part of a divorce settlement, according to the Money and Pensions Service³⁰.

If something goes wrong: complaints and protection

Which body you complain to depends on the type of pension and the nature of the problem. The Pensions Ombudsman can look at complaints about the administration of personal and occupational pension schemes³¹, covering workplace, employer and stakeholder pension schemes, small self-administered schemes, self-invested personal pensions, free-standing additional voluntary contribution schemes, annuities and section 32 buy-out policies, and executive, group and personal pension plans³². The Financial Ombudsman Service can look at complaints about group personal pensions (GPPs)⁷ and personal pensions¹⁶, and if it cannot investigate your pensions complaint it will tell you about an organisation that might be able to help¹⁶.

For workplace pensions, you can complain to MoneyHelper or the Pensions Ombudsman about how your workplace pension is managed¹². The Pensions Ombudsman has also published a member guidance hub covering how to complain about a pension problem, common complaint topics (including overpayments, ill-health pensions, death benefits and incorrect pension information), who can complain, and what it can and cannot do³³.

If you take a complaint to The Pensions Ombudsman, you will need to provide full details of the complaint, the final response from any party you believe to be at fault, any relevant correspondence, and copies of the policies and scheme rules under which the decision was made, if you have them³⁴. Complaints to the Pension Protection Fund, which protects members when employers go bust, can be escalated if you are not happy with the response you are provided with in the first instance, and there are two types of complaint, each for a different type of concern³⁵.

New services bring new complaint routes too. A provider of pensions dashboard services must give users information on how to make a complaint about the service or the provider's acts or omissions, including a link to the Money and Pensions Service central complaints process³⁷. The dedicated guide to complaining about a pension provider, platform or fund manager sets out the process step by step, and The Pensions Ombudsman and complaining about a pension covers the ombudsman route in full.