Workplace pension auto-enrolment

Your employer must put you into a workplace pension automatically if you earn more than £10,000 a year from that job (£833 a month, £192 a week) and you are within the age range the law covers. Contributions are at least 8 per cent of your qualifying earnings, which for 2026/27 means pay between £6,240 and £50,270, and at least 3 per cent of that must come from the employer. In the NHS, schools, councils and the Civil Service, auto-enrolment puts you into the main public sector scheme, which pays well above that minimum.

The thresholds for 2026/27

Threshold	Annual	Monthly	Weekly
Earnings trigger for automatic enrolment	£10,000	£833	£192
Lower limit of qualifying earnings	£6,240	£520	£120
Upper limit of qualifying earnings	£50,270	£4,189	£967

These figures are unchanged from 2025/26. The trigger is tested against your pay in each pay period, so someone with irregular hours can be enrolled in a month when they earn over the monthly figure, even if their annual pay ends up below £10,000.

The age range is also set in law: workers above a minimum age and under State Pension age are enrolled automatically. The Pensions Regulator’s guidance gives the exact ages.

The legal minimum contribution

The minimum is 8 per cent of qualifying earnings in total, with at least 3 per cent from the employer. The worker’s 5 per cent includes tax relief.

Qualifying earnings are only the slice of pay between the lower and upper limits. Say you earn £25,000 in a job that uses the legal minimum. Your qualifying earnings are £25,000 minus £6,240, which is £18,760. The minimum total contribution is 8 per cent of that, £1,500.80, of which the employer pays at least £562.80.

How it works in public sector jobs

Public sector employers use their main pension scheme as the qualifying scheme for auto-enrolment. Start a job in the NHS, a school, a council or the Civil Service, meet the criteria, and you are enrolled into the NHS Pension Scheme, the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, the LGPS or Civil Service alpha.

These schemes are far more generous than the minimum. Take a full-time NHS band 2 worker on £25,272 and compare the example above. The worker pays 6.5 per cent of all pensionable pay, which is £1,642.68 a year, and the employer side is 23.7 per cent, £5,989.46. In the minimum example the worker’s share is £938 and the employer’s £562.80, so the NHS worker pays more, and the NHS pays more than ten times the minimum employer amount.

Many public sector staff are enrolled into the scheme from day one regardless of the earnings trigger, because the scheme rules let anyone in an eligible post join. Even below the trigger, you can ask to join.

If you earn below the trigger

An employer does not have to enrol you automatically if you earn less than £10,000 from a job, but you still have rights:

• If you earn more than £6,240, you can ask to join and the employer must contribute.
• If you earn £6,240 or less, you can ask to join a pension, but the employer does not have to pay in.

In public sector schemes, the scheme rules usually let you join with full employer contributions anyway. Low earners should know that under the net pay method used by these schemes, people earning below the £12,570 Personal Allowance get no tax relief on their contributions. The part-time pensions guide covers this in more detail.

Two jobs, bank work and agency work

The thresholds apply to each job separately. With two part-time jobs paying £8,000 each, neither employer has to enrol you automatically, even though your total pay is £16,000. You can ask each to let you join. The two jobs tax guide covers how tax works in this situation.

NHS bank staff employed directly by a trust are assessed on their bank earnings and can be in the NHS Pension Scheme. The NHS bank work guide explains how bank contracts work. Agency workers are usually enrolled by the agency into its own scheme.

Opting out and re-enrolment

You can opt out after you have been enrolled, using a form from the pension scheme. Opt out within the period set by law and you get back any contributions you have paid. After that, your contributions stay in the scheme.

Employers must put eligible staff who have opted out back into the scheme at regular re-enrolment dates set by law, and you would have to opt out again to stay out. Employers cannot ask or encourage you to opt out. In public sector schemes, opting out means giving up a large employer contribution, and the guide to opting out puts figures on that. If you think your employer has not enrolled you when it should have, raise it with HR first. If that fails, you can report it to The Pensions Regulator.