Guides
What to do with workplace pensions when you change jobs
Leaving a role often means leaving a pension pot behind. Knowing whether to consolidate, leave it, or transfer can save fees and confusion later.
Each new employer enrolment can leave another small pot with a previous provider. Over a career that may mean four or five schemes with different charges, investment funds, and death benefit nominations.
First, gather the annual statements. Note the fund value, annual management charge, and whether the scheme offers valuable guarantees — rare in modern auto-enrolment pots, but still present in some older arrangements. If a pot includes a guaranteed annuity rate or protected tax-free cash, do not transfer lightly.
Consolidation into a personal pension or a current workplace scheme can reduce paperwork and make drawdown planning simpler. It is not automatically better: exit fees, loss of employer matching on an old scheme (usually already stopped), or poorer fund choice can tip the balance the other way.
At Cedar Wharf we often begin with a simple inventory spreadsheet: provider, value, charge, and nomination status. From there we decide which pots to leave alone and which to bring together as part of a wider financial planning consultation.