The minimum contributions that employers and their staff pay into auto-enrolment workplace pension schemes increases from 6 April 2019.
| Date | Employer minimum contribution | Staff contribution | Total minimum contribution |
| New rate – 6 April 2019 onwards | 3% | 5% | 8% |
| Old rate – 6 April 2018 to 5 April 2019 | 2% | 3% | 5% |
Most employers use pension schemes that from April 2019 will require a total minimum contribution of 8% contribution to be paid.
The minimum amount of contributions must be paid into a scheme. An employer must make at least the employer contribution, and the employee must make up the difference.
Most employees will see their contributions increase from 3% to 5% following the increase. This may mean that employees see a reduction in their net pay following their increased pension contribution.
About auto-enrolment workplace pension schemes:
Employers must have a workplace pension scheme in place if any of their employees meets the age and earnings criteria to be automatically enrolled into the scheme, or for any of their employees choose to opt-in to the pension scheme who are not automatically enrolled.
An employee must be automatically enrolled if they have earnings of £192 or more a week (£833 per month/£10,000 per year). If an employee earns over £192 per week and wants to opt-out of the workplace pension, the employer must automatically enrol the employee and the employee has to contact the pension provider directly to opt-out.
Employers must automatically re-enrol all employees every 3 years who have opted out of the workplace pension in the past.