Calculator · Tax year 2026/27 · Sourced from DWP · HMRC · MoneyHelper

What will your UK pension be worth?

According to the DWP, HMRC, and MoneyHelper's published pension rules, this calculator projects your full New State Pension, workplace Defined Contribution pot, and optional SIPP balance up to State Pension Age, and shows the reasoning, line by line, from your year of birth, salary, and contribution split. Everything runs on your device. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Your details

All fields stay on your device, and are remembered here so you can pick up where you left off — useful after a payrise, a new employer match, or the next tax-year's rates. "Reset" below clears the saved values.

Sets your State Pension Age.
Helps estimate your tax band. This is not a full Annual Allowance calculation.
Auto-enrolment minimum is 5% you + 3% employer. Applied to your full salary.
Optional, sharpen the projection
From your gov.uk forecast. Blank = estimated from age.
Return above inflation. 5% is the default illustration, not a forecast.

Enter your details and select Calculate. Your projection, State Pension, workplace pot, tax-free lump sum, and estimated retirement income, appears here, with the reasoning behind every number.

How the calculation works

The calculator is rules-based, not Monte Carlo. For each year between now and your State Pension Age it applies the statutory 2026/27 rules, National Insurance qualifying-year thresholds, auto-enrolment minimums, and the qualifying-earnings band to your inputs, and compounds your pot at the real growth rate you choose. It shows Annual Allowance context but does not determine your personal Annual Allowance. The default 5% is a long-run illustration of returns above inflation; it is not a forecast, and you can change it.

Your State Pension is the full New State Pension (£12,547.60 a year in 2026/27) scaled by your projected NI record: you need 35 qualifying years for the full amount and at least 10 for any payment, so 30 years earns 30/35 of the full rate. Your workplace pot grows from your and your employer's contributions on your salary; the calculator highlights the employer share separately, because that match is money you cannot replicate anywhere else.

Where the numbers come from

Every rate and rule is sourced from a single canonical reference, the DWP rate-uprating order for State Pension weekly rates and qualifying-year thresholds, the HMRC Pensions Tax Manual for the Annual Allowance, taper, MPAA and lump-sum allowance, and MoneyHelper for plain-language interpretation. According to the DWP, the full New State Pension for 2026/27 is £241.30 a week. The full sourcing chain, with dates, is on the methodology page.

What it does not cover

The calculator covers the typical UK saver, auto-enrolled employees, the self-employed, and higher-rate taxpayers topping up a SIPP. It does not model Defined Benefit transfers above £30,000 (which by law require regulated advice), contracted-out NI history before April 2016, lifetime-allowance protections, or overseas residence under bilateral agreements. Income-tax bands shown are for England, Wales and Northern Ireland; Scottish taxpayers have different bands. For anything outside the typical case, use the free government Pension Wise service or an FCA-regulated adviser.

Your privacy

Every input runs on your device. There is no server-side storage, no account, no email capture, and the figures never leave your browser. The optional "shareable link" encodes your inputs into the URL only when you choose to copy it, nothing is transmitted otherwise. PlainPension does not link calculator inputs to identifiable individuals or share them with any third party.

What to do with your numbers

A projection is a starting point, not a plan. Three next steps:

This is a rules-based projection, not financial advice. Confirm your own figures against gov.uk or an FCA-regulated adviser before making decisions.

Compiled from official public sources by the publisher.

PlainPension's calculators and guides reflect current UK pension rules, no figure is typed in without checking the source. This page reflects current UK pension rules and HMRC/GOV.UK guidance, checked before publishing. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these figures, our data changelog of past corrections, or report an error.