Umbrella company and pension

Anthear

I am looking for advice re pension contributions whilst working for an Umbrella company....  I am agency/Supply School Support Staff and the agency I use pay through an Umbrella Company. 

I already have my own personal pension and in order to avoid the added complication of opening another personal pension I would like to use the one I already have.

- problem No 1:  I am paid weekly (not out of choice) and my pension provider (Royal London) can only accept monthly contributions
- problem No 2:  I am not sure if I have to pay both MY personal contribution AND the employER contribution (as per NI) and for the life of me, I can't get any sense of out the Umbrella company (UC) and it would appear that the UC pay into their workplace pension scheme but I cannot get clarification on whether they will pay into my existing provision.

So my questions are:

- if they only pay into their own scheme is this legit - can they do this?  And if so why?
- when working through an UC do I have to make the employEE and employER (max of 3% apparently) pension contributions myself??  That doesn't make a great deal of sense to me (but then again nor did me having to pay the employer NI).

Would be an added bonus if anyone can tell me if when you work through an UC you HAVE to be paid weekly - I would much prefer monthly but never respond to my question on this.

Many thanks in advance
x

Thrugelmir

The UC won't have the administration capacity to cater for everyone's individual demands. 

Use the UC pension scheme. Then transfer the funds once they've built up to your existing scheme. 

Anthear

Thrugelmir said:

The UC won't have the administration capacity to cater for everyone's individual demands. 

Use the UC pension scheme. Then transfer the funds once they've built up to your existing scheme. 

Thanks for this insight. Tbh working via an UC is more hassle than it's worth.  Be glad to get rid and work directly for an agency.

Gary1984

Which umbrella company do you use? Some but not all will allow for salary sacrifice into a SIPP which would mean you wouldn't need to pay either the employer or employee NI. This is pretty much the best perk of contracting through an umbrella company. It's easy to set up a new SIPP to do this.

Do you have any choice over which umbrella company to use? If so switch to one which allows salary sacrifice. I use Paystream which allows it.

Have a look at umbrella company discussions on the contractoruk.com forums.
 https://forums.contractoruk.com/umbrella-companies/

Anthear

Hi Gary - many thanks for this info - I currently have to use Orange Genie.  It seems that they will only pay into their scheme at 3% they won't pay into my existing provision.  I already have 4 separate pensions, I don't really want to set up another.  If I am honest I would only get about £10 a week paid in as a max and term time only, the fees are only going to eat into this.

I will look into whether I can change and check out the link you've provided.

Thanks!

Gary1984

This page gives a bit more info 

https://www.orangegenie.com/news/what-umbrella-company-employees-need-know-about-salary-sacrifice-pensions#:~:text=As an Orange Genie umbrella,at no cost to you.

If it is salary sacrifice as this page suggests then no NI to pay which is good.