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“I am 35 and have essentially nothing saved for my future, which is a huge concern.” Sarah* works in library services in Oxford – full-time at one library and part-time at another. She has saved £5,000 into her pension.
After finishing her PhD in 2020, she said she had “good intentions of contributing to pension schemes. But because I then had a succession of part-time jobs, I never started. I never thought, this is a job I’ll be doing for long enough.”
Sarah is part of a growing cohort in Britain who are not saving enough for their retirement – 15 million people, according to a report by the Pensions Commission. Its independent group of experts warned the figure could rise to 19 million without urgent action.
The problem was particularly acute for women, the government-backed body said, with female savers approaching retirement having private pension pots on average half the size of those held by their male counterparts. Women had a median pension wealth of £81,000, versus £156,000 for men.
Despite now working more than full-time, Sarah has not opted in to her workplace pension scheme, with contributions of about £130 a month, owing to the cost of living. “I live alone in a small flat where my rent and essential bills come to £1,500 per month and my full-time salary is £1,880,” she says.
Her part-time job brings in an extra £500 a month. “With that, I’m able to pay for necessities, but I haven’t been on holiday in years. I don’t have a car. I don’t go out. So I’m not choosing lifestyle over saving.”
While Sarah is relatively young, she worries her savings won’t catch up. “My peers who have been in full-time employment since they were 21 have got a lot more saved than I have. My financial situation is starting to feel worse as I’m getting older. I’m not going to get a high-powered, well-paid job any time soon.”
She was one of many people who got in touch after the Guardian asked how much pension savers had managed to put aside and what this meant for their retirement plans.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever retire’
Danny, a freelance graphic designer from London, has been unable to save into a pension and is yet to finish repaying the £30,000 bounce-back loan he took out during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Every time I have saved, something falls over and the savings diminish,” says the 54-year-old. “It’s always been the mortgage deposit or pension savings that take a hit. First it was the financial crash, then Covid, now the wars.”
Thinking about his financial situation in the future is “frankly terrifying” as a single father with two children, he says. “I don’t know how I will survive on a state pension. Every time I start to stress about it, I find another 10 years have gone by and I’m sitting in exactly the same position. I don’t think I’ll ever be in a place where I can retire.”
Danny says he may consider retraining as an electrician. “The reality is that whilst I’ve done this for 30 years, I’m really beginning to think I need some kind of plan B, because I’m not going to get any inheritance.
“It’s doubly hard when you’re saving on your own,” he adds. “I worry that my kids will need unexpected financial support in the future.”
According to the Pensions Commission, 45% of working-age adults in the UK are not saving into a pension. Their report found that only 4% of self-employed workers are saving for retirement, and about 30% of private pension pots were accessed at the earliest possible opportunity.
The trade body Pensions UK has also estimated that just 23% of the working population are on track to reach a “moderate” lifestyle of £32,700 a year for one person when they retire.
‘I worry about the quality of life’
Even some of those who have pensions are concerned about how long their savings will last. Kevin, 64, a digital user experience designer from Yorkshire, has managed to save £58,000 into his workplace pension and owns a house “in a cheap area”, but still worries it won’t stretch far.
“I’m not complaining, and I am aware people are much worse off, but I don’t quite know how the bills are going to stack up, without turning the heating off in winter,” he says. “I’m single and live alone so I don’t have any of the benefits of shared bills. I just worry about the quality of life.”
Kevin was a professional musician until his late 30s. “Until recently I’ve never earned enough to put a lot away,” he says. “My income was very low. Then I started working in a fairly low-paid publishing job as an editor.”
He had to withdraw £15,000 from his pension pot 10 years ago when he suddenly lost his job. “It would have been possible to save a bit more if I’d never gone on holiday and somehow made do without a car.”
Rather than giving up work altogether, Kevin plans to retrain as a part-time therapist. “I’ve got three years till I retire, and it takes three years to qualify as a counsellor,” he says. “I just need it to run a car and heat the house.”
‘You don’t know where the market is going to be’
Martin*, from Marlborough in Wiltshire, has saved a total of £39,000 into his pension since 2017, when he started working as a content editor. “I’m just contracting at the moment, for very little pay,” he says.
“[As a contractor] you’re not in a job long enough to be able to save for a pension either. When you’re younger, you don’t really think about saving until you actually start having life responsibilities.”
He lives with his mother and supports a child. “Child support is another expense, and I’m trying to save some money for when they’re older as well.”
Martin has been trying to find a full-time role for the last two years. “Looking through LinkedIn and Indeed, more and more of these content editing jobs are contracting roles,” he says.
“[The job market] has been quiet, especially in the content media world. A lot of these jobs now pay very little. I’m also trying to compete with other people who are younger than me.”
While doing contract work, Martin saves about £500 a month into a private pension. He says he first started to think about his retirement plan after his father died 12 years ago. “My mum’s got his pension but it wasn’t as much as I thought it would be,” he says.
But he is uncertain as to when or if he’ll be able to retire. “I don’t know how long I’ll carry on working for,” he says. “The world economy is so unpredictable. You don’t know where the market is going to be. The world is changing so quickly.”
* Names have been changed
