SJP Status of pension
A lot can happen in a few years and it’s important to regularly review your retirement objectives, especially if you have changed jobs as you move through your career.
Your personal circumstances can also impact your future retirement plans, such as taking a career break, raising a family, buying or moving house, marriage or divorce, or changes to your health.
So, if you are looking for information on what you should be focusing on with your retirement plans, the following pages should help, or contact us to find a St. James’s Place adviser near you.
Are your pension savings on track?
Your earnings will change over time as you move through your working life, and it’s important to try and make sure your contributions towards retirement keep pace.
If your earnings have increased over the years, it’s likely that your standard of living has also changed, and will continue to do so in the future. You’ll need to consider this when you think about how much income you would like to live on in retirement.
Here are a few thought starters:
- How much have your earnings changed since you last reviewed the amount you save into your pension?
- If you’re saving through your workplace pension, then it’s often done as a percentage of your salary. This helps to keep your contributions in line with earnings, but is that percentage enough, or a default amount?
- If your employer is also contributing, think about the total amount that you need to go into your pension each year to keep you on track for your retirement goal; does it need increasing? It might be the case that your employer will pay more if you do.
- If you are self-employed then think about whether your pension contributions need to be topped up, especially if your earnings have been through periods of volatility.
- One possible way to give yourself a benchmark is to aim for a multiple of around 6 or 7 times your current annual salary saved into your pensions collectively, by the time you are moving through your 40’s towards your 50’s. Read more about how much money you need for retirement.
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If you’re planning a career break, or perhaps returning to work after an extended period of time, then it’s prudent to understand what action you’ll need to take with your pension (see the ‘Topping up your pension’ and ‘Gaps in National Insurance contributions’ sections).
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It’s useful to know that, in most cases, anyone can pay into your pension. This means you can still make contributions up to £3,600 gross and still receive basic rate tax relief at 20%, even if you have no current earnings, or your earnings are below this figure.
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Another possible tactic is to increase your retirement savings in the lead up to a future career break, if you know when this might be. This may take some of the pressure off with catching up on contributions at a later date.
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Also, it’s worth remembering that it can be difficult to make up any difference in one go. So speak to your St. James’s Place Partner to work out how to factor this into your retirement saving plans.
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If you’ve changed jobs several times during your career so far, it’s possible that you will have acquired several different pensions along the way.
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If your pensions remain invested, it’s important to keep track of how those pensions are performing. If your views on investing have evolved, do your previous pensions still fit with your current objectives?
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Those pensions still belong to you, so it’s vital to keep in touch with your previous pension schemes if possible. If you change address for example, make sure you let each provider know, so that they can still provide you with a yearly statement.
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Many pension providers now offer ways to check your pension online, or via an app. It’s worth seeing what your pension providers offer, as it’s an easy way to keep track of how your pensions are doing.
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If you have lost contact with a previous pension, you can always use the government’s ‘pension tracing service’. You can find more on Gov.uk, or by calling 0800 731 0193.
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You may also consider bringing some of your pensions together; there can be advantages and disadvantages to this, so it is always best to speak to your St. James’s Place Partner first.
The value of an investment with St. James's Place will be directly linked to the performance of the funds selected and may fall as well as rise. You may get back less than the amount invested.
The levels and bases of taxation and reliefs from taxation can change at any time Tax relief is dependent on individual circumstances.
Have your retirement plans changed?
Your plans for retirement, like anything else in life, will need adjusting and reviewing as you get older. It’s likely that, with buying or moving house, a growing family, career breaks, job changes, and possibly health issues, that your circumstances will have changed over time.
Everyone’s circumstances are different, however there are some common areas to focus on:
Your health is another factor that could affect your retirement plans. Poor health can happen to anyone at any time, and mean that you have to bring your retirement forward, or end up working longer to support a loved one.
All of this needs considering when reviewing your retirement plans. A change in your circumstances can not only affect how much you need to save, but also when you might want to start accessing your retirement savings.
It’s worth remembering that retirement doesn’t have to be a fixed age anymore. You can continue to build and grow your retirement wealth for as long as you wish, until you feel ready that you have saved enough to put your retirement plans into action.
What is the cost of delaying making contributions?
There may be occasions where you decide to delay contributing towards your retirement savings. There are many reasons why this might happen, but inevitably it means that you will need to do some catching up in the future to keep you on track for your retirement goals.
To help show what effect this could have, the example below looks at paying into a pension for 30 years, alongside delaying for 1 year and 5 years respectively.
The assumptions used are:
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Saving £3,000 per year (gross) over a 30 year period
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Average growth of 7% per year (assuming a 4% growth rate and a 3% inflation rate)
A delay of 1 year would make a difference of over £22,000, and a 5 year delay would be over £100,000.
Although this is a very basic example, the principle remains that the cost of delay increases dramatically within a short space of time. Your St. James’s Place partner will be able to help you to find the best ways to tackle this.
These figures are only examples and are not guaranteed - they are not minimum or maximum amounts. What you will get back depends on how your investment grows and on the tax treatment of the investment. You could get back more or less than this.

The value of an investment with St. James's Place will be directly linked to the performance of the funds selected and may fall as well as rise. You may get back less than the amount invested.
The levels and bases of taxation and reliefs from taxation can change at any time and are dependent on individual circumstances.


