Pension on a £22,000 salary — the early-career inflection point.

At £22,000 you're firmly into basic rate territory, paying around £1,886 in income tax and £754 in employee NI per year. Auto-enrolment band earnings (between £6,240 and £22,000) are around £15,760, so the legal minimum 8% contribution puts around £1,260/year into your pension (5% you + 3% employer). At a typical UK starting salary in your early 20s, the leverage of contribution rate is enormous. Doubling your personal contribution from 5% to 10% costs around £790/year (£66/month) but adds nearly £80,000 to your projected pot at retirement after 40 years of compounding at 5% net. For someone in their early 20s, that's the highest-return financial decision they'll ever make — and the easiest to make, because they haven't yet developed a lifestyle that depends on every pound of take-home.