NHS Pension + Self-Employment

arewill

Hello all,

I am new around here, new to pensions and new to the NHS! I'm 28 and have been a self-employed sole trader for most of my working life but when the pandemic struck, I lost work and I had to find a new job. I thankfully found a job at my local NHS trust and work Mon-Fri there.

The NHS pension is my first pension as I did not open a personal pension during my self-employment. I do intend to go back to my business when the industry recovers but I hope to continue to work at least part time in the NHS if/when the time comes. I think then, that it would be wise to have a personal pension. 

What kind of personal pension should I be looking at and how do I work out how much I should be paying in to it?

Martin's advice is to halve your age and pay that percentage (14%) in to your pension; do I just take the % of the NHS pension contribution (lets say 10%) and make up the 4% in a personal pension? Because of the way the NHS 2015 pension works, and because I'll have two salaries, I'm not sure if it's as simple as that. I've been reading about this for days so my mind has probably become a bit scrambled.

I have a Lifetime ISA too, which I intend to pay into to receive the full bonus each year until I'm 50. 

Any thoughts or advice welcome.

TVAS

Join the scheme. If you want to make extra conts consider the scheme AVC or a personal pension with low charges. You really do not want to pay more than 0.75% checkout Vanguard, Aviva, Royal London, L&G. Tracker funds are the cheapest as you are still a baby you have time for investment growth and to ride the ups and downs of stock market. I would say at least 10% of salary. If you have a good year i.e. spare cash you can pay an extra 5% as a single premium if you decide to go down the personal pension route. Start listening to MoneyBox on Radio 4. Read the Telegraph. Good luck.

jamjar92

You can pay into a SIPP which you could continue when you start working self-employed again. You also have an option to pay an AVC in the NHS scheme (look at the charges and fund choices available), SIPP tend to have more fund choices. If you are a basic rate tax payer tax relief in a SIPP or at source for NHS/AVC so you need to do nothing.

If HRT (high rate tax payer) you would have to claim this back.

Contribute what you are comfortable with, you have time on your side and are able to add more in later. 

Has Martin said on the ITV show the more you put in now is the less you need to put in later to get the same amount back given the power of compounding.