Pension fees on a £25,000 pot — where the maths starts to bite.
How much do pension fees cost on a £25,000 pot? See the lifetime impact of fees and compare against the cheapest UK SIPPs for 2025/26.
£25,000 sits roughly at the median for UK adults aged 35-44 with a defined contribution pension, according to ONS Wealth and Assets Survey data. It's also approximately the average pot held in NEST, the government-backed default scheme for auto-enrolment. NEST charges 0.3% AMC plus a 1.8% charge on every contribution, which is materially more expensive than its headline 0.3% suggests once contributions are factored in. At £25,000, the difference between a 1% fee and a 0.3% fee compounded over 25 years is around £8,000 — enough to cover a year of state-pension-level retirement income. This is where switching genuinely starts to pay off.