London, 17 June 2026: A year ago, PensionBee launched its Invisible Workers campaign, shining a light on the millions of self-employed workers, gig economy workers and unpaid carers excluded from the pension saving architecture that has been integral in supporting retirement outcomes for employees. Twelve months on, the Pensions Commission has now confirmed what the campaign has been saying all along.
The Commission's interim report, published in May, found that just one in 25 wholly self-employed workers is actively saving for retirement. It explicitly identified the self-employed as a priority group requiring urgent policy attention, and flagged the inadequacy of the current system in reaching those outside traditional employment. For PensionBee, it was a moment of recognition and a call to go further.
When the campaign launched, PensionBee's research found that 74% of self-employed people without a pension were unaware their contributions attract tax relief, that 61% expressed willingness to save if they had the right support, and that someone earning £25,000 who spends thirty years outside Auto-Enrolment could could potentially miss out on around £70,000 due to an absence of employer contributions benefiting from investment growth alongside personal contributions. These numbers are indicative of the depth of the savings gap and the lack of support.
The Commission's interim findings have validated the central argument of the Invisible Workers campaign: that the self-employed pension participation gap is not a behavioural problem but a structural one - one that requires structural solutions. PensionBee has consistently called for three of them:
- Expanding Auto-Enrolment eligibility
- Embedding pension prompts within the Self Assessment tax return process
- Updating the statutory pension transfer deadline to make consolidation genuinely possible
The Commission is expected to publish its final recommendations later this year. PensionBee is calling on it to translate its interim diagnosis into concrete, enforceable reform, and to treat the invisible workforce not as a footnote to the main employed workforce discussion, but as a central challenge that the next generation of pension policy must answer.
Lisa Picardo, Chief Business Officer UK at PensionBee, said:
“What has changed in the past year is that this is no longer a fringe argument. The Commission has put the self-employed at the centre of its work, and the political conversation has shifted accordingly. What has not changed is the reality facing the millions of people this campaign is about: the freelancers, the carers, the gig workers who are still navigating retirement saving entirely alone, without the safety blanket of default saving mechanisms of a workplace scheme, the impact of employer contributions, or the structural prompts that employees take for granted.
"The Commission's final report is an opportunity to close that gap. We will be watching closely to see whether it produces the concrete, actionable recommendations the evidence demands. Despite the need to boost saving among those outside the net of Auto-Enrolment, the solution has always remained the same; the self-employed, carers, freelancers and gig workers should be saving into a personal pension as often as they can afford to. Starting immediately, and putting aside small amounts when possible, enables those deposits to benefit from tax relief and compound interest.”
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