If you've worked at three or four UK employers in your career, you've almost certainly accumulated a separate workplace pension at each one. Add a couple of personal pensions to the mix and you can end up logging into five different provider portals just to see what your retirement income looks like. That's where combining pensions comes in.
This guide is the practical UK answer to "how do I combine my pensions?" — what it actually means, when it makes sense, when it doesn't, what it costs, and the step-by-step of getting it done.
Combining pensions (also called pension consolidation or merging pensions into one) is the process of:
Identifying every pension pot you currently hold across different providers
Choosing one destination plan — usually a low-cost personal pension (often a SIPP) or your current workplace scheme
Transferring the value of each existing pot into that destination plan
Closing the old plans
The end result: one provider, one login, one annual statement. The underlying retirement money is unchanged — it's still yours, still invested, still subject to UK pension tax rules. It just sits in fewer places.
You can combine personal pensions, SIPPs, and most workplace defined-contribution (DC) pensions in this way. Defined-benefit (DB) / final-salary pensions can technically be transferred too, but rarely should be — see the warning later in this guide.
The honest answer: it depends on your circumstances. Most UK savers benefit, but not all.
Reasons to combine:
Easier to track and manage — one login, one statement, one set of fund choices
Often lower fees — modern personal pension platforms typically charge 0.4–0.85% a year; some legacy workplace pensions still charge 1%+
Wider investment choice — old workplace schemes often have a small default fund range; modern SIPPs offer hundreds
Cleaner death benefits — easier for your beneficiaries to deal with one plan than five
Easier drawdown at retirement — taking flexible income from one pot is much simpler than juggling several
Reasons to leave them alone:
Any pension with guaranteed annuity rates (GARs) — these can be worth far more than the pot value and are usually lost on transfer
Defined-benefit / final-salary schemes — the guaranteed inflation-linked income is almost always more valuable than a transfer value
Pensions with protected tax-free cash above 25%
Pensions with enhanced or fixed protection of the lifetime allowance
Pots with early-retirement (pre-55) access rights — rare but they exist
If any of these apply, get regulated advice before you do anything.
Three cost layers to think about:
Since 2017 the FCA has capped exit fees at 1% of the pot value for over-55s, and most modern providers charge nothing. Older legacy plans (some pre-2000s personal pensions and with-profits funds) may charge a Market Value Reduction (MVR) — check before you commit.
If you do it yourself by transferring online, the cost is £0 — most platforms accept inbound transfers free of charge.
If you use a regulated consolidation service (which handles the tracing, the paperwork and the suitability advice), expect a one-off fee of around 1% of the consolidated value. The Pension Tracing Service® charges 1% only on the value of pots you actually consolidate; tracing and review are free, and there's no fee if we don't find anything or can't improve on what you have.
After consolidation, the destination plan charges an annual platform fee — typically 0.3–0.85% depending on the provider, plus the underlying fund management charge (usually 0.1–0.5%). Compare this to what your old plans were charging — often the saving easily covers any consolidation fee within a couple of years.
You can't combine pots you've forgotten about. Pull together:
Your current workplace pension (your employer's HR portal will tell you the provider)
Every former workplace pension (search gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details by employer name)
Any personal pensions you set up yourself
Any SIPP accounts
Any contracted-out SERPS pots (HMRC at BX9 1AN holds these records)
If you're missing details on old workplace pensions, see How to Find My Pensions and How to Find Pensions From Years Ago.
Contact each provider with your details. Ask for:
Current transfer value
Annual fees (platform + fund)
Any guaranteed benefits (GARs, protected tax-free cash, lifetime allowance protection)
Any exit penalties
This is where consolidation lives or dies — without these numbers you can't compare options properly.
Most consolidations land in one of three places:
Your current workplace pension — sometimes good if it's modern and low-cost
A personal pension or SIPP — wider investment choice, full flexibility
A new consolidation plan opened with a regulated adviser — the route most multi-pot consolidators take
The right choice depends on your fees, fund choice and how hands-on you want to be.
This is paperwork, but mostly digital. The destination provider runs the transfers on your behalf via the Origo Options electronic transfer system used between most major UK pension providers. Each transfer typically takes 2–6 weeks.
Once each transfer completes, check:
The full transfer value has arrived
The original plan has been closed
The new plan is invested in line with what you agreed
Any beneficiary nominations have been re-submitted (these don't transfer)
A common question. Some savers find one or two pots are worth keeping where they are (final-salary, GARs) while the rest are worth consolidating. Combining doesn't have to be all-or-nothing.
For the full decision framework see Should I Combine My Pensions?.
Yes, with a slight twist. "Find and combine pensions" is the language the UK Government's Pensions Dashboard programme uses for its planned future service that will let you see every UK pension in your name in one place and (eventually) initiate transfers from there.
At the time of writing, the consumer Pensions Dashboard isn't live yet. Until it launches, the practical "find and combine" route is to use a tracing service (or the free Government tools) to find your pots, then a regulated consolidation route to combine them. See Find and Combine Pensions.
Workplace pensions follow the same five-step process — but with two extra wrinkles:
Auto-enrolment minimums — your current workplace scheme will keep being topped up by your employer's contributions, so you can't usually "stop" the current scheme without leaving the employer
Salary sacrifice schemes — many UK workplace pensions are bonus-attractive because of National Insurance savings on salary sacrifice; consolidating into a personal pension may lose this advantage
The usual approach: leave your current workplace pension alone, and consolidate only your old / dormant workplace pensions from past employers. Once you change job, you can roll the previous workplace pension into your consolidated plan.
You can't, in the UK. UK pensions are individual entitlements — each person's pot is in their own name and can't be merged with another person's. The closest analogues are:
Death-benefit nominations — name your spouse / partner as the beneficiary on each plan
Pension sharing on divorce — a court order can transfer some or all of one person's pension to another's at the point of divorce
State Pension top-ups — a surviving spouse may inherit a portion of a deceased spouse's State Pension
So "combining pensions for couples" is really about co-ordinating planning, not literally merging accounts.
Most major UK providers (Aviva, Standard Life, Royal London, Aegon, Scottish Widows, Nest, Legal & General) accept inbound transfers from any other provider. The mechanics are the same regardless of which one you choose as your destination. What varies is the platform fee, the fund choice and the service quality.
The Pension Tracing Service® is provider-neutral — we identify what you have, recommend whether consolidation makes sense, and (if it does) help you choose a destination plan that's right for your circumstances rather than steering you to any one brand.
The Pension Tracing Service® does the lot:
Free to find every pension in your name
Free review by our regulated advisers
A one-off 1% fee only if you decide to consolidate
0.82–0.86% annual management on the new plan
No fee if we don't find anything, or if we can't improve on what you already have
FCA number 914746 — trading since 2012
Yes — most UK personal and workplace defined-contribution (DC) pensions can be combined into a single plan. Some pensions have valuable guarantees (final salary, guaranteed annuity rates, protected tax-free cash) that may be lost on transfer — these need regulated advice first.
Two free routes: (1) DIY — open a new SIPP or personal pension and request inbound transfers from each old provider yourself; (2) the Pension Tracing Service® — we'll find and review your pensions for free, and only charge a one-off 1% fee if you choose to consolidate.
Usually combining most or all of your DC pots makes sense, but not always all of them. Pots with valuable guarantees (final-salary, GARs, protected lump sum) are usually worth keeping where they are. The decision should be made with a regulated adviser. See Should I Combine My Pensions?.
Each transfer typically takes 2–6 weeks via the Origo Options electronic system used between major UK providers. A consolidation involving 4–5 pots usually completes within 8–12 weeks from start to finish.
Yes — all major UK providers accept inbound transfers. The mechanics are identical regardless of destination. What varies is the platform fee and fund choice. The Pension Tracing Service® is provider-neutral and helps you pick the destination that suits your situation.
Combining usually wins for simplicity and often for fees. Keeping separate usually wins when you have valuable guarantees to preserve. Most UK savers benefit from combining most of their pots. See Should I Combine My Pensions?.
DIY is free at the transfer point but you carry all the suitability work yourself. A regulated service typically charges a one-off ~1% of the consolidated value. The Pension Tracing Service® charges 1% only on what you actually consolidate; we don't charge if we don't find anything or can't improve on what you have.
Yes — that's the most common reason to consolidate. Each old workplace DC pension can be transferred into a single destination plan. See How to Combine Pensions.
Partially. Most providers accept transfer requests via online form on the destination platform — they then run the transfer in the background using Origo. So while the request is online, the back-end takes a few weeks per pot.
No. The State Pension is administered separately by the DWP and isn't affected by anything you do with private or workplace pensions.
For most UK savers with two or more old workplace pensions, combining is a clean win — simpler management, often lower fees, easier retirement decisions. For pensions with valuable guarantees, leaving alone is usually the right call. Get regulated advice before transferring anything worth £30,000+ from a defined-benefit scheme.
You can also request contact details from the Pension Tracing Service by phone or by post.
The Pension Tracing Service
Telephone: 0800 1223 170
From outside the UK: +44 (0) 1782 389134
Monday to Friday, 9:30 am to 5:00 pm
Address
The Pension Tracing Service
The Lantern
High Street
Ilfracombe
EX34 9QB
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The Pension Tracing Service® is a trading style of Millennial Wealth Ltd. We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA number 914746). Pinnacle House, 34 Newark Road, Peterborough, PE1 5YD. Registered company number 11557299.
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