It showed that 57% of women admitted that they hadn’t reviewed their pension in the last year, compared to 46% of men. It was a similar story with charges, with 60% of women and 44% of men not knowing how much they are paying to save for their retirement.

This research suggests it may be a good idea to give your pension plans a midlife review.

Not only is this a great way of flagging problems while you still have more time to address them, it can also help you find ways to boost your pension and give your future self a pay rise.

Here are some ideas to get you started.

1) Check your state pension age

Irrespective of your own retirement plans, your state pension will play a core part of your later-life finances, so it’s crucial you know when you can start claiming yours. The state pension age is currently 66 for both men and women but is scheduled to start increasing again from 2026. 

2) Get a state pension forecast

The full state pension is currently £221.20 a week (2024-25) but the amount you get will depend on a range of factors including your national insurance contributions (NIC), whether you contracted out of the state pension or paid into the additional state pension before 2016 (when the new state pension was introduced).

It’s a complicated system and not easy to work out yourself, but you can find out your position by getting a state pension forecast. This will give you an indication of how much you can expect, when you will get it and the steps you can take to increase it.

3) Gather your private pension paperwork

Next you need to turn to your private pensions and gather the paperwork for all your pension schemes – not just the one you’re currently paying into. 

You might not have one for older positions, but you should have been automatically signed up to a workplace pension for all your jobs in recent years (so long as you met the earnings criteria and didn’t opt out) following the roll-out of auto enrolment between 2012 and 2018.

You can start by contacting your former employer or ex-colleagues who might be able to remind you of the pension company running the scheme. If that doesn’t work, you can use the government’s pension tracing service.

According to The Pensions Policy Institute, in the UK there are over 2.8 million lost pensions worth a staggering £26.6 billion.

4) Review your pensions

Once you’ve gathered all your pensions, you’ll need to find out how much each of them is worth and how they are performing.

Every year you should get a statement for each of your defined contribution (DC) pensions. These contain a wealth of information about your retirement saving and should include:

• The amount you paid in
• The amount your employer paid in
• The level of tax relief you  received
• Details of where the contributions are invested and how they have performed
• An indication of what your pension could be worth when you retire
• The charges you are paying

The obvious starting point is to look at the income each pot might deliver when you reach your chosen retirement age and add it to your state pension to get an idea of how much you will have to live on once you’ve retired – although of course do remember that with DC pensions the pension income you could receive is not guaranteed.

It’s hard to know exactly how much you will need – the PLSA’s Retirement Living Standards research provides helpful guidelines. But if your overall retirement pot isn’t looking quite as big as you would like, you’ve got the prompt you need to think about increasing your contributions.

However, paying more into your pension isn’t the only way to breathe life into it. It’s also worth reviewing  how the funds you’re currently invested in compare with other fund options available to you. This can be a complex assessment and if you’re not sure you should seek financial advice.

If you have a defined benefit (DB) pension you won’t be able to manage it the same way. However, if your scheme sends you an annual statement, it’s still worth paying close attention to ensure you know what you will get and when. If your scheme doesn’t provide annual statements, you can request one.

5) Check you are getting the right level of tax relief

The government pays tax relief on pension contributions equivalent to your rate of income tax. However, if you have a private pension you have set up yourself, such as a SIPP, you will only get the basic rate of tax relief (20%) applied automatically. If you pay the higher or additional rate, you can claim the further relief you’re entitled to back through your tax return. You can backdate your claim by up to four years.

Some workplace pension schemes also apply tax relief this way (referred to as “relief at source”), but some will give you the full benefit of tax relief you are entitled to immediately (referred to as “net pay” arrangements) – in which case you don’t need to take any further action. If you aren’t sure how your workplace scheme applies tax relief, ask your employer.

6) Think about consolidating

If you have multiple pensions that you are no longer contributing to, and the process of sifting through numerous statements has been a bit of an ordeal, it might make sense to consolidate them into one scheme, such as a self-invested personal pension (SIPP).

The big draw for many people is that it makes your retirement finances easier to manage, but if your consolidated pension has lower charges, it can also give your retirement savings a sizeable boost over the years. Older workplace pensions can be expensive and there are often substantial savings to be made by transferring your pots into a cheaper online SIPP.

A SIPP could also give you access to a wider range of investments and potentially fewer restrictions when you come to access your pot as well. However, they do not include any default investment options, so you will need to be willing to choose investments yourself.

It’s also important that you check whether you’ll lose out on any benefits (such as guaranteed annuity rates) when you transfer out of an older pension or be hit with any exit penalties and factor those into your decision.

Exit fees have been scrapped for pensions set up after 31 March 2017, but they may still apply on older schemes. And, while they are capped at 1%, for those who are old enough to access their pension (age 55, rising to 57 in 2028), exit fees can be substantially higher for younger customers.

This article is provided by ii for information purposes only.   The content is not intended to be a personal recommendation to buy or sell any financial instrument or product, or to adopt any investment strategy as it is not provided based on an assessment of your investing knowledge and experience, your financial situation or your investment objectives. The value of your investments, and the income derived from them, may go down as well as up. You may not get back all the money that you invest. The investments referred to in this article may not be suitable for all investors, and if in doubt, an investor should seek advice from a qualified investment adviser.
Important information – SIPPs are aimed at people happy to make their own investment decisions. Investment value can go up or down and you could get back less than you invest. You can normally only access the money from age 55 (57 from 2028). We recommend seeking advice from a suitably qualified financial adviser before making any decisions. Pension and tax rules depend on your circumstances and may change in future.