New to pensions, made £80k this year, can I get the tax back if I put it in a pension

atush

I would not get all het up abouth the RISK of the pension, now when you are paying Higher rate tax on almost 40K of your money. In effect, if you put in all your income over 42K, then each 1000 into your pension would only cost you 600. Which means anything would have to be over a 40% drop before you lost anything.

Add in, that you can invest in funds which are large groups of shares/equities spread across the globe and you'd be hard pressed to find yourself losing 40%. Then add in that the loss is only a paper one, until you sell.

Did my investments go down in 2008? Yes, but not 40%. And did they recover? Yes, because I did not sell but coninued to invest. Investing during/after price falls is when you make your maximum gains as you buy more units at a much lower price which eventually recovers.

So at your age, with at least 30 years to go, i would nto be paralysed by risk, unless you like paying higher rate tax.

Everything has risk including Cash. Which at todays rate of inflation and poor interest rates is shrinking in buying power weekly.