Pensions- consolidate or not

Tjh1412

Hoping someone can give me some ideas of what is best to do, and how to best go about tackling pension/retirement planning please. Any comments very gratefully received

Currently I am aged 34 and have:
Scottish widows private pension-set this up when 19, contributions scale in line with inflation each year. £59k here roughly (based on annual statement from July). In a balanced fund

Legal and general pension- £920 as this was from a fixed term contract. No idea what fund this is in, trying to track down extra paperwork so need to call then

People's pension from former employer- £35k here. In the adventurous fund

Fidelity SIPP- invested in US and global tracker funds. Only set this up in September 2026 so only £800 here so far.

Current workplace pension- just switched jobs, so awaiting paperwork. Will be with Aviva, not sure on fund choices available yet. I pay 3.25% of salary in, company matches 9.75%. No additional match available for extra contributions.

My questions are:
Should I consolidate everything bar current workplace pension into my SIPP for ease of management and lower fees?

How do I best work out if I am on track for retirement savings? Have been reading up on this but figuring out a personalised number is boggling my brain a bit!

If any of you pension wise people could shed some light, would be extremely grateful indeed

Marcon

Tjh1412 said:

Hoping someone can give me some ideas of what is best to do, and how to best go about tackling pension/retirement planning please. Any comments very gratefully received

Currently I am aged 34 and have:
Scottish widows private pension-set this up when 19, contributions scale in line with inflation each year. £59k here roughly (based on annual statement from July). In a balanced fund

Legal and general pension- £920 as this was from a fixed term contract. No idea what fund this is in, trying to track down extra paperwork so need to call then

People's pension from former employer- £35k here. In the adventurous fund

Fidelity SIPP- invested in US and global tracker funds. Only set this up in September 2026 so only £800 here so far.

Current workplace pension- just switched jobs, so awaiting paperwork. Will be with Aviva, not sure on fund choices available yet. I pay 3.25% of salary in, company matches 9.75%. No additional match available for extra contributions.

My questions are:
Should I consolidate everything bar current workplace pension into my SIPP for ease of management and lower fees?

How do I best work out if I am on track for retirement savings? Have been reading up on this but figuring out a personalised number is boggling my brain a bit!

If any of you pension wise people could shed some light, would be extremely grateful indeed

Consolidation makes it easier to keep track of where your pensions are, but doesn't necessarily mean lower fees - it could be quite the reverse. You need to check the fees on each of your existing pensions and see how they compare to your SIPP, bearing in mind that fees are often related to the particular fund choices you make within each pension, rather than 'the pension' itself.

At 34, I think trying to work out a 'personalised number' is a recipe for brain boggling! It's admirable that you are already thinking so far ahead, but possibly focusing on how much you can realistically afford to save, when you won't be able to access your pension for at least another quarter of a century or so, might be a more pragmatic approach? Also think about a rainy day fund - life has a habit of getting in the way of the best-laid plans, so tying up all your savings in a very long-term investment vehicle could leave you having to borrow should the untoward happen.

MallyGirl

I suspect the SIPP was started in 2025.
I would transfer the £920 one into of the others for simplicity.
more info needed on the fees and options in the others to get any useful suggestions I would say

Tjh1412

Yes sorry 2025 for the SIPP

Fees wise Scottish widows is 1.4%, people's pension charge 0.5% plus an annual £4.50 charge and the funds in my SIPP charge 0.06%.

Not much choice with people's pension, only 4 prebuilt options to choose from, all with the same fees. Scottish widows has many more options, but lowest charge is 1%.

Good point about the rainy day fund. I do have a S&S ISA with £15k in, and a seperate £10k saved to cover maternity leave next year, but this is only 7.5 months of expenses so I could look to boost to a years worth. Thank you both for replying 

Brie

I'd be tempted to put the tiddlers into my currect work pension just for tidiness.  There's good reasons (to me) to have a couple of different ones just so they can be dealt with differently.  But it depends on your brain and personality.  Can you manage with them all in a spreadsheet for the next 30 + years?  Or do you want/need to deal with one admin only?

DRS1

I thought the Fidelity SIPP fees looked low.  I suspect you may find there are some more fees there see below 

Fidelity SIPP Review - An Honest Assessment

Tjh1412

Thanks DRS1, just checked and you are correct. 0.06 is the fund charge, there is also a 0.35% management charge, so 0.41% overall. 

Based on the helpful advice so far, I am thinking to move Scottish widows and have the extra 1% working for me rather than going to charges, and the legal and general as it is so small. Will start phoning around to get transfer values, check there's no exit fees etc.

Thanks again to everyone who has taken time to reply

hara____

Bear in mind that it doesn't only come down to fees. It's worth checking whether any of your older accounts have a protected pension age:

https://thepeoplespension.co.uk/minimum-pension-age-change/

wjr4

Tjh1412 said:

Yes sorry 2025 for the SIPP

Fees wise Scottish widows is 1.4%, people's pension charge 0.5% plus an annual £4.50 charge and the funds in my SIPP charge 0.06%.

Not much choice with people's pension, only 4 prebuilt options to choose from, all with the same fees. Scottish widows has many more options, but lowest charge is 1%.

Good point about the rainy day fund. I do have a S&S ISA with £15k in, and a seperate £10k saved to cover maternity leave next year, but this is only 7.5 months of expenses so I could look to boost to a years worth. Thank you both for replying 

Why is Scottish Widows’ charge so high? 

DRS1

I think the OP did well to discover what SW's charges are.  I had an SW pension for near 40 years and to this day I have no idea what the charges were.  They weren't in the annual statements I got and nor are they in the fund fact sheets.

dunstonh

DRS1 said:

I think the OP did well to discover what SW's charges are.  I had an SW pension for near 40 years and to this day I have no idea what the charges were.  They weren't in the annual statements I got and nor are they in the fund fact sheets.

Since Lloyds have been using the booklet style statements (A5 size), they have been putting a charges disclosure in there.   I have seen several from SW & Halifax using the same layout.     It doesn't give percentage but a monetary amount that was paid.

However, you say it's circa 40 years ago.  So that could make it an S226 RAC (pre April 1988) rather than a personal pension, and many of the S226S had their charge taken within the with-profits fund before the bonus was set and not at contract level.  So, it's much harder, often impossible, to get an actual charges figure.   It would be akin to asking for an explicit charge disclosure on a savings account.