Self-employed workers risk losing £70,000 in retirement savings as Chancellor's first Budget nears

London 16 October 2026: A year of evidence from PensionBee's Invisible Workers campaign lands weeks before Chancellor John Healey's first Budget and amidst growing speculation that self-employed private pension reform is on the cards in Spring 2027.

Chancellor John Healey delivers his first Budget in just over two weeks, with pension tax relief and salary sacrifice already dominating speculation. A year of research published today reveals a bigger problem missing from that conversation entirely: an estimated 4 million self-employed people in the UK, and millions more working through gig platforms or juggling multiple part-time jobs, sit outside a pension system built for traditional employment. A worker earning £25,000 who spends 30 years outside it stands to lose around £70,000 in retirement savings.

Across six waves of research over the past year, PensionBee found that 57% of gig and temporary economy workers say they are unable to afford pension contributions, and 74% of self-employed people without a pension do not know their contributions would qualify for tax relief. The Government's own Pensions Commission reached a similar conclusion in its interim report in May, finding that only one in 25 wholly self-employed workers are actively saving for retirement.

The findings echo a proposal from outside the pensions industry too. The Institute for Fiscal Studies proposed in May 2026 that self-employed people filing a Self Assessment tax return should be required to make an active choice about pension contributions at that point.

66% of UK adults already back extending automatic pension enrolment to the self-employed through the tax return system, PensionBee found, rising to 78% among 25-34 year-olds. The report calls for four reforms: extending Auto-Enrolment eligibility to the self-employed and fixing the earnings threshold that currently excludes people working multiple part-time jobs; embedding pension prompts into the Self Assessment tax return; building guidance around the life events, such as maternity leave and career breaks, that widen the gender pension gap; and making pension transfers more efficient.

Real customer accounts in the report illustrate these barriers in practice: among them, a gig worker whose agency contracts technically include pension provision but rarely trigger enrolment given how fragmented her bookings are across several agencies, and a self-employed mother whose pension contributions fell away across two periods of maternity leave before she took direct control of her own retirement saving.

The Pensions Commission's final report, now expected in spring 2027, gives the Government its next opportunity to act. PensionBee will assess its findings against the four recommendations set out in this report.

Lisa Picardo, Chief Business Officer UK at PensionBee commented:

“The barrier sits in the structural disadvantage, not with the person. None of this reflects a lack of willingness to save, or a lack of desire for a good retirement outcome. Every survey in this report finds the opposite: self-employed workers engage with pensions at higher rates than most people assume, and the public, across every income band and age group, backs reform. But self-employed workers still are not saving enough.

“This is a structural problem, and a structural fix is needed. This report sets out what we found, who it affects, and what needs to change. I hope it gives the Pensions Commission, the Government and the wider industry the evidence and the urgency to keep pushing for reform.”