Pension on a £18,000 salary — the auto-enrolment baseline.
What pension can you build on an £18,000 salary? See tax, NI, auto-enrolment minimums, and realistic retirement projections at UK 2025/26 rates.
£18,000 is around the entry-level full-time wage in retail, hospitality, and care. You're paying basic rate income tax on around £5,400 of earnings (£1,080/year) and 8% NI on around £5,400 (£432/year). Auto-enrolment minimums put roughly £945/year into your pension automatically (5% from you, 3% from your employer on band earnings between £6,240 and £18,000). The key insight at this salary is that the difference between the legal minimum and a 'good' contribution rate is small in absolute pounds. Bumping your personal contribution from 5% to 8% costs you around £350/year (£29/month) and increases what goes into your pension by about 60%. Over 35 years that's the difference between a £75k pot and a £120k pot — a meaningful chunk of retirement income from a contribution most people wouldn't notice.