Public sector pensions for part-time staff

Part-time staff join the same public sector pension schemes as full-timers and build up pension in proportion to what they earn. In the career average schemes, each year adds a fraction of your actual pensionable pay to your pension, so working three days a week builds roughly three-fifths of what a full-timer on the same grade builds. Your contribution rate is usually set by your actual pay too, which means many part-timers pay a lower percentage.

How part-time pay builds pension

The NHS 2015 Scheme, the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) and Civil Service alpha all work on a career average basis. Each scheme year, you earn pension equal to a fixed fraction of the pensionable pay you received in that year. That slice is then revalued each year until you retire.

The calculation uses the pay you actually received, so there is no separate pro rata adjustment to worry about. A teaching assistant paid for 26 hours a week builds pension on the 26-hour salary. A nurse who drops from full time to three days builds a smaller slice from the date the hours change, and the pension already earned is untouched.

The older final salary sections (such as the NHS 1995 and 2008 sections, or classic and premium in the Civil Service) worked differently. They used your full-time equivalent salary at the end and counted part-time service as a fraction of a year. If you still have service in one of those sections, a cut in hours late in your career does not reduce the final salary figure used for that service. Your annual benefit statement or the scheme administrator can tell you which sections you have.

Contribution rates when you work part-time

The NHS Pension Scheme in England and Wales and the Teachers’ Pension Scheme both set the rate on actual pensionable pay, so a part-timer often lands in a lower tier than a full-timer on the same grade. The LGPS also places you in a band by what you actually earn, and your employer reviews your band every April.

The Civil Service scheme publishes its own rules on how earnings are measured for its four bands. If you are in alpha and work reduced hours, check the contribution rates page or ask your department’s HR team which figure is used.

Example (2026/27)	Actual pay	Rate	Yearly contribution
Teacher on M6, full time (England, outside London)	£46,940	8.9%	£4,177.66
Same teacher at 0.6	£28,164	7.4%	£2,084.14
NHS band 5 entry, full time	£32,073	8.3%	£2,662.06
Same nurse at three-fifths	£19,243.80	6.5%	£1,250.85

These are hypothetical figures. The M6 figure is the rate recommended from 1 September 2026, which the government has accepted, but the teacher pay scales guide explains why maintained schools are still waiting for the legal document. In each case the part-timer pays a lower percentage of a smaller salary and still builds pension on every pound of pensionable pay.

Term-time only staff in schools

Most school support staff in England and Wales are in the LGPS and paid term-time only. Under the NJC advisory model, a 39-week contract with a 36-day leave comparator pays 86.778 per cent of the full-time salary, before any further adjustment for working fewer than 37 hours.

Say you are a teaching assistant on SCP 5 (£26,427 full time), working full hours over 39 weeks. Your actual pay would be about £22,932.82, which falls in the £18,401 to £29,000 LGPS band at 5.8 per cent, or roughly £1,330 a year. Your pension builds on that £22,932.82. The term-time only pay guide shows how the percentage is worked out for other contracts.

The LGPS also has a 50/50 section where you pay half the contribution and build half the pension, while keeping full death and ill-health cover. Some part-time staff use it for a period when money is tight, and you can move back to the main section at any time.

Extra hours and overtime

If you work part time and pick up extra hours, the general rule in the NHS and LGPS is that hours up to the full-time standard for your job are pensionable. Overtime worked by full-time staff above their contracted hours generally is not. In the NHS, bank work for an NHS employer can also be pensionable, with contributions deducted from bank pay.

For teachers, pay for additional work beyond the contract (for example some tutoring or exam marking arranged separately) may not be pensionable at all. Supply teachers paid through an agency are not in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme for that work. Your payslip shows which pay elements had pension deducted. If you are unsure, ask payroll before you take on a second contract.

Two part-time jobs

With two jobs in the same scheme, such as two part-time NHS posts with different trusts, each employer usually treats you as a separate member for contribution purposes. Each sets your tier from the pay in its own job, and your pension builds up from both.

Two jobs in different schemes (for example an LGPS school job and an NHS bank contract) build two separate pensions, each under its own rules. That is fine, but keep both benefit statements and check each one.

For auto-enrolment, each employer looks only at what it pays you. If one job pays below the £10,000 a year earnings trigger, that employer does not have to enrol you automatically, though you can still ask to join the public sector scheme. The auto-enrolment guide explains the thresholds.

Your legal protection

Under the Part-time Workers Regulations 2000, part-time staff must not be treated less favourably than comparable full-timers, and that includes access to the pension scheme. Excluding part-timers from a scheme, or offering them worse terms because they work part time, would be unlawful. The part-time workers’ rights guide has the wider picture.

When your hours change, check your next payslip to see that the contribution rate has been updated, and your next benefit statement to see that the pay figure matches what you earned. Errors are corrected through your employer, so start with payroll or HR. A union can help if you think the scheme has been applied wrongly.