From 6th April 2019, the total minimum contributions increased to 8%.
These are broken down into Employer’s and Employee’s contributions as follows:
Pension contributions are calculated on “pensionable earnings”.
In 2024/25 tax year these are your gross earnings between £120 to £967 per week. This means that the maximum amount of earnings subject to pension deduction is £847 a week (£967 - £120). Example below:
| Your Weekly Gross Earnings | £650 per week | £1,000 per week |
| £650 is greater than £120, but less than £847 | £1,000 is greater than £847, over the max banding. | |
| Pensionable Earnings | £650 - £127 = £530 | £847 |
| Employee Contribution | £530 @ 5% = £26.50 | £847 x 5% = £42.32 |
| Employer Contribution | £530 x 3% = £15.90 | £847 x 3% = £25.41 |
You can also top up your pension with Advanced Voluntary Contributions, which are Employee only contributions applied to your overall available income. You can read more about this here.