Partner Insight: From awareness to action – closing the retirement planning gap

Automatic enrolment has brought millions of people into workplace pension saving. Pension dashboards continue to move up the policy agenda. And, whatever your opinion on them, social media is full of financial influencers encouraging people to consider their future.

Yet despite growing awareness, a significant gap remains between people thinking about retirement and preparing for it.

Royal London's new workplace pensions research suggests that while just over half (51%) of employees have given their financial needs in retirement considerable thought, fewer than one in five have developed a clear retirement plan (18%).

At first glance, that may appear contradictory. If people are thinking about retirement, why are so many struggling to turn those thoughts into action? The answer may lie in the difference between awareness and engagement.

For many employees, retirement exists as a dim and distant future concern rather than an immediate priority. They recognise its importance, but competing financial pressures, especially in a world of cost-of-living pressures, often, and rightly, must take precedence. Housing costs, childcare, higher household bills and short-term savings goals all compete for attention. So, understandably, long-term planning can easily drift to the bottom of the list.

Our research highlights this tension. While employees are increasingly aware they need to prepare for retirement, relatively few have considered practical issues such as the income they might need, whether their pension savings are on track or how they plan to access their pension later in life. That distinction matters.

The difference between "I know I should think about retirement" and "I have a plan" is substantial. One reflects awareness. The other reflects action.

For advisers, this creates an interesting challenge.

In the last couple of decades, as the transition from defined benefit to defined contribution has accelerated, the success of workplace pension engagement has often been measured through participation levels. The industry spent years trying to persuade employees to start saving and the introduction of automatic enrolment transformed that landscape.

Today's challenge is not participation but preparation. Automatic enrolment has succeeded in bringing millions more people into pension saving, with more than eight in ten employees now members of a workplace pension scheme (Source: DWP Workplace pension participation and savings trends of eligible employees: 2009 to 2023). However, the extent to which people engage with and plan for retirement varies considerably.

Many employees appear to be accumulating pension savings without a clear sense of what those savings might ultimately deliver. Others have a broad idea of when they would like to retire but little understanding of whether their current saving levels support those ambitions.

The real risk is that retirement expectations become disconnected from reality with people believing participation alone will deliver the security they need in later life.

The research found notable differences between age groups, gender and levels of engagement. The differences were particularly striking among mid-life employees, women and those who had never sought professional support. Employees aged 35-49 often appeared caught between awareness and action, having thought about retirement without necessarily developing a clear plan (only 13% have a clear retirement plan). Women generally reported lower levels of retirement confidence than men – only 40% of women are confident they are saving enough for retirement compared to 59% of men - while employees who had engaged with financial advice were more likely to demonstrate stronger retirement planning behaviours. While only 69% of employees with a workplace pension have a clear or rough plan for retirement, that rises to 93% of those who've sought advice from a financial adviser on how much to save into a pension and 94% of those who have sought advice on their pension options when they retire.

Together, the findings suggest that retirement readiness is influenced not just by age or earnings, but by engagement and access to support.

None of this necessarily means employees are disengaged. In fact, one of the more interesting conclusions from the data is that many people are engaged, just not in a structured way. Thinking about retirement occasionally is not the same as having a strategy. That distinction presents an opportunity for advisers working with employers and workplace pension schemes.

Many workplace engagement programmes focus on encouraging pension participation or increasing contribution levels – and both are important. However, there needs to be increasing value in helping employees understand what successful retirement planning looks like in practice.

Questions that sound simple to advisers may be questions employees have never fully explored - like what lifestyle they expect in retirement or how much income they might need. These can often reveal whether someone has moved beyond awareness.

From an employer perspective, the findings are equally relevant. Financial wellbeing is increasingly recognised as part of a broader employee value proposition. Organisations that want to support long-term financial resilience need to look beyond participation metrics and consider whether employees are developing the understanding and confidence needed to make informed decisions.

The broader lesson is that retirement planning has entered a new phase. The industry's biggest success over more than a decade was persuading people to save. The challenge now is helping them understand why they're saving, what they're aiming for and whether they're on course to achieve it.

Addressing that challenge will require action across the industry. From financial advisers to pension providers, we need to rethink how we support people throughout their pension savings and retirement journey, and give them the confidence to plan ahead.

Because awareness, while important, is only the starting point. Turning awareness into understanding, confidence and action is the only way we'll help more people achieve better retirement outcomes.

Source: Our Workplace Pension research was conducted online by Opinium in July 2026 among a sample of 3,500 UK employees with a workplace pension.