Our work

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Our work covers three main areas of saving, work and retirement. Find out more about each of these below.

Saving

Thanks to automatic enrolment, eight out of ten employees now save into a pension compared to less than half in 2012. But many people are not saving enough for the retirement they want. In fact, more than half of people retiring with defined contribution pensions in the coming decades will be struggling to achieve the retirement they want or need. 

We are campaigning for change to make sure more people are included in sufficient and affordable pension saving through automatic enrolment. We also want to see action to better support people to understand and engage in their pensions, including through the launch of pensions dashboards. 

Work

Today, one in three people in the UK’s workforce are aged 50 or above, forming a crucial part of our economy. But there are around one million people aged 50 to 64 who are not working but want to work.  

We believe that policymakers and employers need to actively enable people in the 50s and 60s to stay in good work. We want to see improved access to careers guidance and employment support, greater availability of good-quality flexible and part-time jobs, and more support for people to keep working if they have a health condition, disability or caring responsibilities for others.  

We also campaign to make it easier for people to change their careers over their working lives. Too few people today have access to the support they need to help them make the right next job move and remain in fulfilling work. 

Our Careers can change campaign convenes a dedicated group of experts and specialist organisations who all work to make it easier for people to make successful career changes.   

Retirement

Our experiences and expectations of retirement are changing. For some, it means a single shift from full-time work to full-time leisure. For others, the transition is more gradual or complex. We believe that policymakers, businesses and employers need to recognise these varied and changing paths, to better meet everyone’s needs in this critical life transition. 

This includes thinking differently about how people are supported to make financial decisions around retirement. While defined contribution pensions and pension freedoms allow for more flexibility and more opportunities for pension pots to continue to grow in retirement, they also place a huge burden of responsibility and risk on people to take complex decisions and make judgements about their potential future needs. Independent financial advice is too expensive for most people, and far too few retirees are accessing the guidance and support they need to take good decisions. 

We campaign to make it easier for people to get the help they need as they take decisions about accessing the pension income and planning for their retirement. In particular, we’re working on proposals for how a new model of ‘targeted support’ could best be designed to deliver more personalised support to people who cannot afford independent financial advice. 

The state pension also plays an essential role in retirement for millions of people. We need to ensure it remains adequate and sustainable over the long term, whilst also taking action to mitigate the impact of rises in the state pension age on people least able to remain in work up until that age.