5 things you should do during pension awareness week

Are your retirement savings on track? As pension awareness week kicks off, now's the time to take stock. 

The national campaign is designed to increase understanding of pensions and encourage people to be more proactive with their retirement planning. 

Government analysis published in July 2025 showed that some 14.6 million working age people aren't saving enough for retirement, with those in their 40s and 50s most likely to be affected.

Here are five things you can do to take control of your retirement savings during pension awareness week.

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1. Check your pension statement

Which? research from June 2025 found that around half of people didn’t know how much they’d saved into their pension.

It's simple to check – just log into your online account or dig out your latest pension statement. 

Also check the contact details your pension provider(s) hold about you are correct. 

Keeping tabs on your savings is set to become more straightforward with the launch of pension dashboards at the end of 2026. These will allow savers to see all their pensions in one place online and potentially move money around more easily. 

• Find out more: how defined contribution pensions work

2. Track down old pensions

If you've regularly changed jobs, it's likely you've built up multiple pension pots in different places, some of which you may have lost track of.

There are estimated to be around 3.3m 'lost' pensions in the UK, each worth an average of £9,470. 

Pension providers must send you an annual statement, so start by searching for old paperwork for details about forgotten pots.

If you don't know the name of the pension provider so can't contact them directly, the free Pension Tracing Service operated by the government has a register of all workplace schemes. 

This will give you the name and contact details of the provider of an employer's scheme. 

• Find out more: how to find old pensions

3. Nominate a beneficiary

Make sure you have nominated who your pension should go to when you die.  This can usually be done easily online via your pension provider’s website. 

It's an important bit of admin because defined contribution pensions are not part of your estate, so aren't covered by your will.

If you don’t nominate beneficiaries on all your pensions, this could create a headache for the scheme trustees – at whose discretion the money will be paid out – and for the person you'd intended to receive the money. 

• Find out more: what happens to my pensions when I die?

4. Review your contributions

The minimum you have to pay into a workplace pension is 8% of your salary. This is made up of 5% from you (including tax relief from the government) and 3% from your employer. 

But if you can afford to pay more than the minimum or make extra contributions from time to time – for example, if you get a bonus – this will make a big difference to your pot over the long term. 

Calculations by Standard Life show that an employee increasing their contributions from 5% to 7% at the age of 22 could end up with pot worth an extra £52,000 (adjusted for inflation) by the age of 68. 

Some employers will match your contributions, giving your savings even more of a boost. 

• Find out more: how much will I need to retire?

5. Get a state pension forecast

When trying to work out if your savings are on track for a comfortable retirement, remember you won’t need to rely entirely on your private pension – you'll also get some help from the state pension.

You won't qualify for this until you reach the age of 66 (rising to 67 between 2026 and 2028), but you can get a state pension forecast now to see how much you’re set to get.

The full level of new state pension is currently worth £230.25 a week, but the exact amount you get will depend on your National Insurance (NI) record and whether you were ‘contracted out’ of the additional state pension before 2016.

You need 35 years' worth of National Insurance contributions to get the full state pension and 10 years to get anything at all.  

If you have gaps in your National Insurance record you can pay to fill them and boost your state pension. 

• Find out more: your state pension forecast explained