I hear a version of the same story from a lot of people in their thirties and forties: two or three jobs behind them, a pension pot from each one, and no real idea what any of them are worth. Some can name the providers. A few can't even manage that.
It's not a small group. Pensions UK estimates there are 3.3 million lost pension pots in the UK worth a combined £31.1 billion. That's only the ones formally classed as lost, where the provider has no current contact details for the owner. The number of pots people technically know about but haven't looked at in years is almost certainly bigger.
You can't plan a route without knowing where you're starting from. Not knowing what you have tends to produce one of two reactions: a low-grade worry that follows you around, or a shrug that turns into years of not looking. Neither gets you closer to an answer, and both come with a real cost.
You don't know where you stand. This is the starting point for any financial plan. If you're already close to where you want to be, that's useful to know: it might free you up to stop overworking a problem you've already solved. If you're behind, that's useful too, because it tells you to change your saving or investing now rather than in five years.
You're probably paying more than you should. Old pots often sit in a provider's default fund, invested conservatively and returning very little. Charges on those legacy schemes are frequently higher than what a new employee joining the same scheme today would pay. You end up with the worst combination: paying more, for less.
Your investments may not match your risk appetite. If nobody's looked at a pot in years, there's a good chance it's not aligned with how much time you have left to invest. A pot sitting mostly in bonds when you're 35 and won't touch the money for thirty years is doing you no favours. The reverse happens too: people nearing retirement who are still fully exposed to equities without realising it.
Most people I talk to end up in a better position than they expected once they actually look. Finding out where you stand is the first step, and it's usually less painful than putting it off.
Finding an old pension isn't as hard as it feels when you're avoiding it. It comes down to three steps.
Start with what you already have. Old provider statements and payslips from previous employers are the easiest first pass. If the employer has since merged, been acquired, or changed its name, search for the new entity. If you can't remember who the pension provider was, don't worry: your old employer's HR team, or the tracing service in the next step, can usually work it out from the employer name alone.
Use the government's free tracing service. The pension tracing service at gov.uk will look up the contact details for a pension scheme if you give it an employer name. It's free, takes a few minutes per employer, and doesn't require you to know anything beyond where you worked and roughly when.
Contact the provider directly. Once you have the provider's details, get in touch with your name, date of birth, and National Insurance number ready. They'll verify who you are and send a current statement.
The government is also building a pensions dashboard that's meant to show all of this in one place automatically. It isn't live yet, so for now this manual process is the fastest route.
A pension statement on its own doesn't tell you much until you know what to look for.
Current value. The obvious one, but worth stating: this is the number everything else gets measured against.
Charges. Add up the annual management charge, any platform fee, and any other costs buried in the small print. Compare the total against what you'd pay on a modern SIPP or your current workplace scheme. It's common for an old pot to be charging two or three times what a newer, larger provider would.
What it's invested in. The fund will usually have a provider-specific name that tells you nothing on its own, so ask for the fund factsheet. It should show the split between equities and bonds, geographic exposure, and a stated risk level. Compare that against how much time you have left before you'll need the money.
Type of pension. Defined benefit (tied to your final salary or a formula based on years worked) is a different animal from defined contribution (tied to how much was paid in and how it's performed). Defined benefit pensions come with their own rules and are usually not worth moving without professional advice.
Protected benefits. Some older defined contribution schemes carry extras like guaranteed annuity rates or the right to access the pot before the normal minimum age. These are easy to lose by transferring without checking first, and hard to get back.
Once you've got this for each pot, you'll have a genuine picture of what you own and whether it still fits what you need.
A few situations are worth flagging before anything else: if you have a defined benefit pension, a guaranteed annuity rate, or any other protected term, get advice before you touch it. These are usually worth more left exactly where they are.
For everything else, you're really choosing between two options.
Leave it where it is. If the charges are reasonable and the fund matches your risk appetite, there's no obligation to move it. Set up online access with the provider, or ask for annual statements, so you're not starting from zero again in five years.
Consolidate into a SIPP. This is usually the more sensible route for old workplace pots with nobody actively managing them. A single SIPP gives you one place to see your holdings and adjust them as your goals change. I keep two pension accounts: one SIPP for everything from past jobs, and my current employer's scheme. Every time I change jobs, the old pot moves into the SIPP and I'm back down to two accounts. It's cut my average charges noticeably compared to leaving pots scattered across old providers' default funds.
Worth knowing: most employers will pay contributions into their own scheme, not directly into a personal SIPP. Some workplace schemes will accept transfers in from old pensions too, which is worth asking about if you'd rather consolidate there instead.
Once everything is in one place, the patterns are obvious in a way they never are when your pensions are scattered across four providers. You can see duplication, spot if you're overexposed to one sector, and check whether the whole thing is actually working toward your goals rather than just sitting there.
People get more engaged with their financial planning once they can see all of it at once. It's harder to ignore a number you can actually see, and easier to rebalance when you're not logging into three separate portals to do it. And almost everyone I've walked through this finds more than they expected. Finding a forgotten pot worth a few thousand pounds more than you remembered is a genuinely nice surprise.
Gild exists for exactly this: one place to see every pension, account, and investment you hold, without logging into each provider separately. Connect what you can, add the rest manually, and get the full picture in one view.
The pension tracing service is free and run by the government. You don't need a financial adviser to use it, and you don't need to pay anyone to find a lost pension on your behalf. If someone charges you for this, it's not necessary.
Everything in one place: your banks, pensions, investments, and goals.
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