250k savings

colsten

steampowered said:

With that sum of money, you need to take a long term view. 

You don't take a long term view if you want to use the money to buy an apartment in 18 months time.

You also don't want to invest most, if not all of the money if you need it in the next 5-7 years to finance your PhD.


But yes, if the OP didn't mean what they said and can put the money away for 7-10+ years, then investing is an option, and a pension should definitely be one of the investment vehicles. Whether an S&S ISA would be an option this year depends on when they deposited how much into their cash ISA.