The Invisible Workforce

One year of evidence for pension reform

A review of the PensionBee Invisible Workers campaign: June 2025 to September 2026

In June 2025, PensionBee launched a campaign seeking to address the question that the pensions industry and successive governments have been grappling with for some time: how can the millions of people the UK pension system was never built to reach be supported for their retirement?

Self-employed workers. Gig economy workers. Freelancers and contractors. Low-earners and part-timers. Parents and carers who step back from paid work. A growing and critical army of millions of people that work hard, pay tax and contribute to the economy, yet fall outside many of the safety nets surrounding traditional employment: a significant one being automatic enrolment into a pension scheme that an employer also pays into. We’ve named them invisible workers: present in every measure of the economy, essential to the fabric of our society, yet often absent from retirement saving.

I know this from personal experience as well as from the data. I ran my own business for five years. Every year I filed tax returns and accounts with Companies House. At no point did either process offer me an option to move money into a pension, or prompt me to think about one. When you run a company, you think of the company first: payroll, suppliers, cash flow, growth. Then you have children, and you think of them first. Your own retirement saving keeps slipping down a list that never quite reaches it, not because you do not care, but because nothing in the system around you ever asks the question or makes it happen for you.

Twelve months in, I feel two things at once. Proud of what the campaign has surfaced, but also frustrated that so much of it had already been said, by others, for years, and still nothing had changed. We found that most self-employed people without a pension have no idea their contributions qualify for tax relief. We found that a worker on £25,000 who spends thirty years outside Auto-Enrolment stands to lose around £70,000 in retirement savings. We found that self-employed women reduce or stop pension contributions during maternity leave far more often than they maintain them, because no one designed the system with their working pattern or important life events in mind.

None of this reflects a lack of willingness to save or a lack of desire for a good retirement outcome. In fact, 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. The barrier sits in the structural disadvantage, not with the person.

In May 2026, the Pensions Commission confirmed the scale of the problem in its interim report, finding only 1 in 25 (4%) of wholly self-employed workers is actively saving for retirement. It named the self-employed a priority group. For PensionBee, the finding closed a loop: a year of data collected directly from invisible workers now sits alongside the Government’s own evidence, pointing towards the same conclusion: 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 act.

Lisa Picardo
Chief Business Officer UK, PensionBee

This report sets out a year of evidence from PensionBee’s Invisible Workers campaign, launched in June 2025 to expose a structural gap in the UK pension system. Millions of people, including an estimated 4 million self-employed people, alongside gig economy workers, freelancers and contractors, carers and career-break takers, do not benefit from Auto-Enrolment. No employer signs them up. No default mechanism prompts them to save or explains the tax advantages of making contributions. No employer contributions add to anything they do put in themselves. Silence at so many critical stages of life where work is interrupted.

The stakes reach beyond this group alone. Across the wider UK working population, only 9% are on track for a comfortable retirement, and only 23% are on track for a moderate standard of living, according to updated Retirement Living Standards. In the case of the 82% or so that are facing a basic standard of living, this is almost entirely supported by an assumption of the State Pension. Invisible workers face a shortfall from a starting position with fewer tools available to close it: no employer contribution, no default saving mechanism, and, in many cases, no clear idea of the support already on offer.

Across the last year, PensionBee has commissioned nationally representative surveys, analysed customer data, and tracked developments inside government. Combined, this research builds a detailed picture of who invisible workers are, the barriers keeping them out of pension saving, and the reforms needed to bring them into a system built around a form of employment fewer and fewer people now hold.

This report brings this research together, alongside PensionBee’s recommendations for the Pensions Commission, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the wider pensions industry.

A year ago, PensionBee launched the Invisible Workers campaign to expose a growing gap in the UK pension system. Millions of self-employed people, gig workers, freelancers and unpaid carers sit outside Auto-Enrolment, with no employer to sign them up, no educational nudge, and no default way to easily save. Twelve months of research highlighted four consistent problems: a system designed around traditional employment, an affordability barrier tied to irregular income, a knowledge and confidence gap around tax relief and product design, and unsupported life events such as maternity leave and career breaks.

In May 2026, the Pensions Commission confirmed the scale of the problem in its interim report, finding only 1 in 25 (4%) wholly self-employed workers save for retirement. The findings match what PensionBee’s own research found a year earlier. The evidence points toward one conclusion: this is a structural rather than behavioural problem and therefore reform rather than more nudges and encouragement are required.

• 57% of gig and temporary economy workers report being unable to afford pension contributions
• 1 million+ invisible workers lack the means to save for retirement
• Only 16% of gig workers earning under £15,000 participate in pension savings, vs. 46% of those earning £100,000 or more
• 74% of self-employed people without a pension do not know their contributions qualify for tax relief
• £70,000 of retirement savings estimated to be lost by a worker on £25,000 who spends 30 years outside Auto-Enrolment
• 81% of self-employed workers hold pension savings, yet only 22% feel highly confident it will support them in retirement
• 62% of self-employed women do not calculate how maternity leave affects their long-term pension savings
• 66% of UK adults support automatic pension enrolment for the self-employed and gig workers through the tax return
• 1 in 25 (4%) wholly self-employed workers actively save for retirement, per the Pensions Commission’s May 2026 interim report

Invisible workers are people who fall outside the reach of workplace pension Auto-Enrolment. Auto-Enrolment relies on a traditional employer-employee relationship, built around payroll systems, employer contributions and a default opt-out design. A very effective safety-net to ensure some accumulation of personal retirement savings, to layer on top of the State Pension. None of these mechanisms exist for someone who invoices clients directly, drives for a delivery platform, or steps back from paid work to care for a family member.

This group is large, and it is growing. The self-employed population in the UK stands at an estimated 4 million people according to the Second Pensions Commission’s Interim Report. That figure alone understates the true scale of the invisible workforce: it does not capture the millions more who fall into the categories below without being self-employed themselves, from zero-hours employees to people running a side hustle alongside a main job. Self-employment among women reached its highest level since 2020 in the final quarter of 2025. Half of UK adults now hold a side hustle alongside their main income, yet only 5% pay any of the extra income into a pension. Every one of these workers manages retirement savings alone, without the nudge of a workplace scheme or an employer contribution.

Scroll sideways to see the full table.

These categories overlap. A freelancer often cares for family too, and a part-time worker often runs a side hustle alongside a main job.

The following case studies illustrate how invisible workers experience the barriers set out in this report, and where PensionBee’s products and tools have played a part.

PensionBee’s personal pension is built to work for exactly this group: a self-employed person can open one, consolidate old pensions from previous jobs into a single plan, contribute flexibly - whether that is a regular monthly amount or one-off payments timed to when income allows - benefitting from a 25% tax top up from the government on personal pension contributions.

• ZRCase study 1Contractor
• COCase study 2Gig Economy Worker
• HSCase study 3Self-Employed Parent

Four forces combine to keep invisible workers out of pension saving. Each reinforces the others: a system designed around traditional employment, income too unpredictable to commit to regular contributions, low awareness of the support already available, and life events that fall outside every safety net built for full-time, payroll employment.

A system built for employees

Auto-Enrolment ranks among the most successful pension policies in UK history. Since 2012, it has moved millions of employees from inaction into saving by default, using employment as the mechanism. It relies on three things: a payroll system to deduct contributions, an employer to match them, and an opt-out design so inertia works in favour of saving.

None of these three things exist for a self-employed worker, a freelancer, or a gig economy worker. There is no payroll to plug into, no employer to contribute alongside them and no default enrolment moment. Saving becomes an active decision, taken alone, against competing priorities, month after month, for a considerable amount of time. The Pensions Commission’s May 2026 interim report highlighted just how few out of an estimated population of 4 million self-employed workers are actively saving for retirement.

The mismatch grows more pressing as work itself changes. Self-employment, freelancing and gig economy work all continue to expand. Career breaks for caring responsibilities, during which people might take on more modest, flexible jobs, remain common, especially as a sandwich generation of those caring for young children and aging parents grows. Half of UK adults hold a side hustle alongside their main job, or several lower paying jobs, at once. A pension system designed around a single, stable employer relationship increasingly describes a shrinking share of the workforce.

The contribution challenge

Affordability also sits at the centre of the problem. At the campaign’s launch in June 2025, 57% of gig and temporary economy workers reported being unable to afford pension contributions. Later research complicates a simple story of disengagement.

A January 2026 survey of 1,000 self-employed workers found 81% hold pension savings and 72% had contributed within the past year, levels of engagement that undercut any assumption the self-employed opt out of saving altogether. When it comes to how confident they feel about any provision they are making: only 22% feel highly confident their pension will support them in retirement, and more than a quarter (27%) feel no confidence at all.

Both engagement and confidence may ultimately come down to income security and size of earnings. 47% cite income-related barriers as their main obstacle to saving, 31% point to unpredictable earnings and 20% say they are unable to afford regular contributions. Among those already saving, 16% struggle to maintain contributions when earnings fluctuate, producing episodic saving rather than consistent contributions. Distrust is not the issue, with only 2% citing a lack of trust in pensions as a concern.

Product design is a key problem that repeatedly rears its head for the self-employed. One in five self-employed pension holders find pensions confusing or hard to manage. 13% say pension products are not designed around self-employed working patterns, built instead for a steady monthly salary few self-employed workers receive.

A knowledge and confidence gap

A lack of awareness of some of the benefits of pension saving rather than unwillingness, may hold some self-employed workers back from saving more. 74% of self-employed people without a pension do not know their contributions attract tax relief, a gap in basic knowledge with a direct cost. 61% say they would save given the right support and information.

This gap sits within a wider pattern. Across the UK population, 88% of people do not know the rate of tax relief they receive on pension contributions. For employees, an employer’s payroll system applies relief automatically, hiding the gap in awareness behind a working system. For the self-employed, no equivalent mechanism exists, so the gap in knowledge is more likely to feed into a deprioritisation of savings.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there is greater evidence of a lack of confidence among lower paid self-employed workers. Among gig workers earning under £15,000, only 16% pay regularly into a pension, against 46% of those earning £100,000 or more, and only 18% of the lowest earners describe themselves as highly confident about their financial future, against 39% of the highest earners. One in five workers earning £15,000 or less expects to rely solely on the State Pension in retirement.

Life events

Auto-Enrolment assumes a continuous career: one employer, then another, with contributions accumulating steadily in the background. Invisible workers rarely experience retirement saving this way. Maternity leave, career breaks and periods of caring responsibility interrupt contributions at the moments income already comes under pressure.

Among self-employed women, 62% have not calculated how maternity leave affects their long-term pension savings: 36% have not thought about it at all, and a further 26% have thought about it without carrying out the calculation. Only 18% report detailed planning. During maternity leave itself, 47% reduce contributions or stop saving altogether, against 36% who maintain the same level. Household expenses and reduced income during leave rank as the two most common reasons cited for cutting back.

Uncertainty compounds the financial impact. Four in ten (40%) of self-employed women do not know whether maternity leave will leave them behind in retirement, and 37% believe it will. Family members are able to contribute to a pension on someone’s behalf during a career break, with the usual government top-up applied, a low-cost option most self-employed women are never told about. A proactive nudge at the right moment, rather than something people have to already know to look for, would put this option in front of many who currently have no idea it exists.

Caring responsibilities beyond maternity leave follow a similar pattern: income interrupted at points chosen purely by circumstances, not by what is most convenient for the individual.

Two-thirds of the population will likely step away from paid employment to provide unpaid care during their careers. Currently, 8% of people act as carers, with one in ten supporting multiple individuals. This demand for support is constant: 5% of the population receives care weekly, and for 40% of those individuals, the need for assistance is continuous.

The financial penalty of this care compounds over time. A single year away from the workforce can shrink a pension pot by around £5,000. PensionBee’s 2023 research identified five critical care moments across a career: caring for a child, a partner, a parent, a grandparent, and a grandchild. Individuals who step back at each of these stages stand to lose approximately £30,000 in total savings, often leaving them with only a minimum standard of living in retirement. Data from the Pensions Policy Institute’s Underpensioned Index further highlights this structural trap, noting that carers experience the lowest employment levels and highest part-time work rates among the groups it tracks, a pattern that mirrors the barriers faced by disabled workers.

Carers remain outside the safety net of Auto-Enrolment for the same reasons as other invisible workers: the absence of an employer, a payroll system, and a default saving trigger. However, the timing of these breaks is rarely a matter of choice. While National Insurance credits protect State Pension rights, no such mechanism exists for private savings. A dedicated disability and caring pension credit would provide the most direct solution, serving as a sixth essential pillar alongside our other reform recommendations.

Government and the wider industry now need to build the rest of the system around that same flexibility. PensionBee is calling on the Pensions Commission and the Government to treat invisible workers as a central part of pension policy. Alongside this report, PensionBee has already built the Invisible Workers Calculator, letting anyone outside Auto-Enrolment see the personal cost of staying outside the system, and continues to develop flexible pension products designed around irregular income. But alongside individual encouragement, urgent structural reform is needed to really close the gap. Four reforms should be considered:

1. 1

   Expand Auto-Enrolment eligibility

   Extend Auto-Enrolment to cover all self-employed workers, removing the reliance on a traditional employer-employee relationship to trigger enrolment. Alongside this, assess earnings across all jobs rather than job by job: someone working several part-time or zero-hours roles, each below the £10,000 earnings trigger, can earn a reasonable combined income while qualifying for enrolment in none of them. That trigger, and the wider earnings thresholds around it, has been unchanged since 2015/16. Two thirds (66%) of UK adults already support automatic pension enrolment for this group through the tax return system, rising to 78% among 25-34 year-olds and 83% among those earning £100,000 or more. Trigger an educational moment to support people with their savings journey, explaining important benefits such as tax relief on pension contributions.

2. 2

   Embed pension prompts within the Self Assessment tax return

   Build pension saving directly into the Self Assessment process, giving the self-employed a route to opt in and contribute alongside their existing tax obligations. As we know that engagement is not the barrier (81% of self-employed workers already hold pension savings), a prompt at the moment self-employed workers sit down with their finances turns existing engagement into consistent saving. Again, trigger pension education to highlight the importance of personal savings.

3. 3

   Build guidance around life events, beyond life stages

   Maternity leave, career breaks and caring responsibilities are the exact moments 47% of self-employed women reduce or stop pension contributions, often through necessity. A proactive, well-publicised prompt at this moment, flagging the option for family members to contribute on someone’s behalf with the usual government top-up may reach families who currently don’t know this option exists and for whom it may be appropriate.

4. 4

   Make pension transfers more efficient

   Every invisible worker who opens a new pension after a period of gig work, freelancing or a career break needs a system that lets them bring old savings across quickly. A handful of changes would fix this:

   • Update the six-month statutory transfer deadline, unchanged since 1993, to reflect realistic modern processing times.
   • Mandate electronic transfers as the default, replacing paper-based processes that still take more than twice as long to complete.
   • Reform the Amber and Red Flag scam-prevention system so it targets genuine risk instead of delaying routine, low-risk transfers.
   • Set consistent minimum service standards across all providers, with public transparency on turnaround times, so the slowest providers face real pressure to improve.

Structural barriers can’t be left for individuals to resolve when the stakes are so high - both for the individual and for a society that benefits from everyone having personal funds for retirement. PensionBee sets out four examples for the Government and pensions industry to take-on: expand Auto-Enrolment eligibility and fix the earnings threshold that excludes multiple-job workers, embed pension prompts in the Self Assessment return, build a positive prompt into the moment the gender pension gap widens, and make pension transfers more efficient. Each of these could remove a barrier that the evidence in this report has identified.

A year of PensionBee research sits alongside the Pension Commission’s findings. Invisible workers face no employer contribution, no default enrolment into a pension, products often built around a salary they do not receive, and, for most, no idea what support already exists, and no idea about the impact of the trip hazards that life’s events invariably throw up on their long term financial security.

The Pensions Commission’s final report, due in 2027, gives the Government a critical chance to produce lasting reform.

PensionBee will monitor the Commission’s final report closely, and will assess it against our four recommendations.

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