June 2026
17Jun

British pensions giant reducing US exposure over tech risks

Britain's biggest ​pension asset owner, the Border to Coast Pensions Partnership (B2C), is reducing its allocation to U.S. ‌assets by up to 10% due to concerns about overexposure to a small number of Silicon Valley giants, an executive at the fund said on Tuesday. B2C, which oversees around £120 billion ($161 billion) worth of local government pension assets globally, is shifting its ​weighting by about 5%-10% from investments in the U.S. to Europe and Asia, its chief investment ​officer, Joe...

June 17, 2026
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17Jun

UK to review pension transfer rules after unusual deal

Britain will review defined benefit pension transfer rules after ​a novel deal saw an ‌asset manager take on a scheme's assets and liabilities in an unanticipated ​use of existing legislation, ​a government minister said on Tuesday. Torsten ⁠Bell, a junior minister in ​the finance and pensions departments, ​said the deal used a flexible apportionment arrangement – a mechanism introduced in 2012 ​to allow pension liabilities to ​be reassigned during corporate restructurings without triggering ‌employer ⁠insolvency. Bell said the asset manager used...

June 17, 2026
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12Jun

How does private pension saving change for workers moving from employee jobs into self-employment?

By Jonathan Cribb & Laurence O'Brien Self-employed workers make up a significant part of the UK workforce, with over one-in-eight workers in self-employment. However, there are long-standing concerns about low levels of pension saving among this group: only 20% of working-age self-employed workers were saving in a private pension in 2022–23, compared with around 80% of employees (Department for Work and Pensions, 2025a). The trends in pension participation differ markedly between the two groups. In the late 1990s, almost 50%...

June 12, 2026
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12Jun

UK. Pension saving plummets when employees move into self-employment

Currently, only around one-in-five self-employed workers save into a private pension, compared with around four-in-five employees. There is widespread agreement that there is an urgent need for policies addressing low pension participation among the self-employed, as recently highlighted by the Second Pensions Commission. A key potential moment for such policies is the point when employees move into self-employment. Currently, even among employees consistently saving in a pension, more than three-quarters stop saving in a pension once they start being self-employed. This...

June 12, 2026
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10Jun

UK. Smart Pension surpasses £10bn AUM

Smart Pension has surpassed £10bn in assets under management (AUM), meeting the government’s first ‘scale test’ ahead of the 2030 timeframe. The pension provider manages the pensions of two million members and 100,000 employers across the UK, and described the £10bn AUM mark as a “major milestone”. It is on track to meet the future mandatory scale thresholds, as set out in the Pension Schemes Act, having now surpassed the government’s initial £10bn AUM threshold ahead of the 2030 deadline and...

June 10, 2026
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05Jun

The war on Iran could send UK pensions up in smoke

As a barrage of Iranian missiles rained down on the Fujairah oil terminal, the explosion was deafening and the destruction dramatic: a brutal fire, thick black smoke stretching into the sky – and untold damage to one of the region’s crucial pieces of fossil fuel infrastructure. The Fujairah terminal is part of the UAE’s key oil export route because it bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, loading up ships with about 1.7 million barrels per day. The attack on 4 May...

June 5, 2026
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03Jun

Pensions UK backs action on adequacy as retirement living costs increase

The latest Retirement Living Standards (RLS) update from Pensions UK has highlighted the scale of the retirement savings challenge facing UK workers, as the Pensions Commission considers whether minimum automatic enrolment contribution rates should rise in future. The annual standards, calculated by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, show that a minimum retirement lifestyle now costs £13,900 (€16,000) a year for a single-person household and £22,500 for a two-person household. A ‘moderate’ lifestyle costs £32,700 and...

June 3, 2026
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01Jun

UK. Around one in eight young adults feel pension engagement is ‘pointless’

Around one in eight (12 per cent) young adults, equivalent to approximately 2.2 million people, feel engaging with their pension is pointless because they will never be able to retire, research from People’s Pension has shown. It described this group as ‘Nerds’ – the Never Ever Retiring Demographic – and warned the industry was failing to connect with them. The research found that 47 per cent of young adults aged 18 to 27 were not engaged with their pension, and 12...

June 1, 2026
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01Jun

Later parenthood and weak pensions put Gen X at risk

Later parenthood and weak pensions put Gen X at risk Why timing matters: Later parenthood can mean child costs overlap with prime pension-saving years, delaying retirement readiness. Property no safe bet: Gen X’s higher property ownership offers less security as house price growth lags behind inflation and market returns. Pension gaps widen: Missing out on generous past schemes and starting saving late leaves many Gen Xers exposed to future income shortfalls. Generation X entry into workforce after defined benefit pension schemes ended Generation X began their working...

June 1, 2026
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May 2026
29May

Jamie Fiveash appointed as Pensions UK chair

Pensions UK has appointed Smart UK chief executive, Jamie Fiveash, as the new chair of the association. Fiveash will start a three-year term on 1 July 2026. He succeeds Emma Douglas, who is stepping down to take up her new position as chair of The Pensions Regulator. Fiveash has over 30 years of experience across financial services and over 15 years of c-suite and board-level leadership. As chief executive of Smart UK, Fiveash leads the £9.5bn Smart Pension master trust with two...

May 29, 2026
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