Guides · Pensions

Old workplace pensions: finding them and seeing them alongside everything else.

Facts checked 22 October 2026

Most people who have changed jobs a few times have a pension at each employer. Some of those pots are easy to forget, and a provider that has lost touch with you cannot pay you when you retire. Finding them is a matter of working through a list, and the government service that helps is free.

Why pots get left behind

Since automatic enrolment began in 2012, most employees are put into a workplace pension without having to ask. When you leave, the pot stays with that employer's provider and contributions stop. A move of house without telling the provider, a change of name, or a provider that is taken over or renamed is enough to lose the trail. The money is still invested, and still charged for, but nobody is reading the statements.

Finding them

List every employer you have had, even short jobs, and any personal pension you set up yourself. MoneyHelper suggests crossing an employer off only if you are sure there was no pension, or that your contributions were refunded when you left.
Find each provider's name. Old statements, the employer's HR team or former colleagues can usually tell you who ran the scheme. If the employer went bust, the scheme may now be run by the Pension Protection Fund.
Use the Pension Tracing Service. This free government service gives you a scheme's current contact details from an employer's or provider's name, online at GOV.UK or by phone or post. It does not tell you whether you have a pension there, or what it is worth.
Contact the provider. Give your National Insurance number, past names and addresses, and the dates you worked there. If they find a pot, check they have your current address so the statements reach you.

Before you combine them

Bringing several pots into one can cut charges and make them easier to follow. It can also lose something. Check each pension before you move it:

Is it defined benefit? A final salary or career average pension pays a guaranteed income rather than holding a pot. If the guaranteed benefits are worth more than £30,000, you must take regulated financial advice before you can transfer them.
Does it carry guarantees? Guaranteed annuity rates, a with-profits bonus or a protected pension age can be worth more than a lower charge elsewhere, and are lost on transfer.
Are there exit fees? The old provider can tell you.
Is your employer still paying in? Many employers will not pay into a scheme you choose yourself.
Is it small? MoneyHelper notes that a pot worth less than £10,000 may be better left alone if you plan to take it all at once, because small pot rules may then apply.

If you have a defined contribution pension and are 50 or over, Pension Wise, run by MoneyHelper, gives a free, impartial guidance appointment on the ways to take money from it. Moving an ISA or SIPP to another platform covers how a transfer works and what it can cost.

Seeing them alongside everything else

A list of pension statements tells you what each pot is worth on its statement date. It does not tell you how much of what you own is in pensions, when you can reach it, or what it would be worth after tax. For that, the pensions have to sit in the same place as everything else.

How Fairworth does it

In Fairworth each pension is an account of its own: a workplace pension, a SIPP, or a defined benefit pension at a value you record for it, such as its transfer value. Each one counts towards your net assets on the Overview, next to your ISAs, general accounts, property and cash.

The Holdings page keeps pensions apart from the money you can reach now, and splits them between the tax-free part and the part taxed as income. Projections lets a pension pay for spending only from the minimum pension age, worked out from your date of birth: 55 today, rising to 57 on 6 April 2028. Some schemes keep an earlier protected pension age; Projections uses the standard one, and says so. Your net worth covers how a pension counts in it.