Average pension pot by age

How big is your pension pot versus other people? Everyone’s route to retirement is different. But it can be helpful to know roughly where your pension savings are compared to people of a similar age, to gauge if you are likely on track.

Having private pension savings is increasingly important. While the bedrock of most Brits’ pension saving is the state pension, the full new state pension is only (from April 2026) worth £12,547 a year. It goes some way to covering retirement costs, but for many isn’t enough for a decent standard of living.

The triple lock system means the state pension rises every year in order to keep up with the cost of living, although calls for the triple lock to be scrapped as too costly are getting louder, meaning it is even more important to have private pension savings, such as a workplace pension or self-invested personal pension.

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According to Pensions UK, a single person’s spending requirements need £13,900 a year – after tax – up from £13,400 in 2025, to live even a basic lifestyle in retirement. Enough for around £57 a week on groceries, £32 per month to cover two taxi trips and no budget for a car. This figure is more than a thousand pounds higher than the current full new state pension.

A single person wanting a comfortable retirement would need enough of an income to support spending of £45,400 a year – up from £43,900 in 2025 – almost triple the current full new state pension amount.

There’s nearly always more that can be done to boost your pension further, such as switching your pension to a cheaper provider. Research shows that high fees could erode your pension pot by as much as £70,000 over 30 years.

If you’re hoping to finish work and retire early, you will also likely need a larger pension than average, or other types of wealth that can produce an income.

For those whose pensions are lagging behind, don’t stress – there are steps you can take now to boost your pot.

Average pension pot by age

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has data on how much the average pension pot is worth for seven age groups.

Source: Pension wealth: wealth in Great Britain, 2020-2022, ONS, published January 2025. This only includes people with pension wealth, those that have zero pension savings are excluded in the figures.

Unsurprisingly, the youngest people have the smallest pension pots. Those aged 16 to 24 have average pension wealth of £5,500.

This figure then more than triples to £18,800 once we get into the 25 to 34 age bracket, where the vast majority of people are working.

The average amount roughly doubles to £39,500 for the 35-44 age group. Average pension wealth peaks when savers are aged between 55 and 74, with about £140,000 tucked away for retirement.

It then falls to £59,700 for those aged 75 and over as they start to spend their savings in retirement.

The ONS also highlights the gender pension gap, with men having more in their pensions than women at every age group. For example, the average man aged 45 to 54 has £108,100 in pension wealth. But the average woman only has £57,900.

Pension pots have actually got bigger for the younger generations over the past few years, according to the ONS, while they have got smaller for older people. This could be due to auto-enrolment boosting pension wealth for young workers.

At the same time, baby boomers with fat pension pots are starting to fall out of the statistics and are being replaced by a growing number of people approaching retirement who don't have final salary schemes.

For example, the average pension wealth has doubled for a 25 to 34-year old from 2018-20 to 2020-22 (from £9,500 to £18,800). But for a 65 to 74-year old, the figure has dropped from £190,000 to £145,900 over the same time period.

Some pension providers have also done research into how much pension pots are worth for different age groups. AJ Bell, for example, looked into its internal self-invested personal pension (Sipp) data in June 2026 to see how much investors had squirrelled away.

It found from age 25 onwards, the figures nearly double at each decade. This is due to two factors. Firstly, more time for investors to add contributions to their pot. Second, the power of compounding over time (where the growth of contributions and returns ‘snowball’ with growth building on growth).

Meanwhile, PensionBee gave the following figures to MoneyWeek in January 2026 showing the average pension of its customers:

• Aged under 30: £3,745
• Aged 30-39: £10,660
• Aged 40-49: £23,311
• Aged 50 and over: £42,578

The size of your pension pot is often directly related to your net worth – you can discover the average net worth by age using our guide.

According to MoneyPlus, a useful rule of thumb in terms of how much to put away in a pension is to save half of your age as a percentage of your salary – for example, if you’re 20, aim for 10%. “Even the smallest contributions add up over the next 40 years of work, so it’s always best to start as soon as you can,” it says.

What to do if you're behind

If you’ve looked at the numbers, and you’re lagging behind the rest, don’t panic – there are steps you can take now to get you back on track and, if starting early enough, your investments have time to compound.

The most important first step is assessing your current position, said Clare Moffat, pensions and tax expert at pensions provider Royal London.

“Gather information about all of your pension pots, including workplace pensions, private pensions and the state pension,” Moffat said.

“Make a list of each pension, their current values and any projections you’ve received.”

Once you’ve done this, it may be worth tracking down pensions from previous jobs and consolidating them into one – this makes the administrative effort of maintaining your workplace pension(s) easier and can reduce the amount you’re paying in fees. Just make sure doing this makes sense for you and saves you money overall.

Lisa Picardo, chief business officer at PensionBee, said: “With an average UK worker changing jobs 11 times in their career, many people have multiple pension pots, but some will be forgotten or even lost.

“Track down old paperwork, call your old employer, or use the government’s free Pension Tracing Service to locate any old workplace pensions. Then consolidate them if it makes sense to do so.”

After this, Charlene Young, senior pensions and savings expert at investment platform AJ Bell, said it’s worth making the most of tax incentives on offer, including pension tax relief, and increasing your workplace pension contributions while seeing if your employer will match them.

She added: “If you’re already getting your employer maximum, then you could consider paying all or some of any pay rise or bonus into your pot each year, if you can afford to.”

We have more on this topic in Can you pay into someone else’s pension – and how much can you pay?

If you're wondering what the average savings amounts are by age, MoneyWeek has produced a helpful guide.