Under auto-enrolment, most employees must be enrolled into a pension scheme by their employer ‘automatically’, meaning that the employees do not have to take any action at all to join the scheme, although they can choose to opt out of the scheme once they have been enrolled.

All employers who have at least one employee that qualifies for auto-enrolment must provide a pension scheme that is suitable for the auto-enrolment system. Auto-enrolment pension schemes must meet certain rules designed to avoid any issues that would prevent some employees from joining.

If they have no employees who qualify for auto-enrolment. employers do not have to provide an auto-enrolment pension scheme. However, they must regularly assess their employees (to see whether they qualify for auto-enrolment) and provide them with information about auto-enrolment.

This factsheet provides information about employers’ auto-enrolment duties. It explains which employees must be automatically enrolled into a pension, how to communicate with employees about auto-enrolment, how to choose a pension scheme and make contributions, and how to make a declaration of compliance to The Pensions Regulator (TPR). It also explains the requirement to re-enrol certain employees into a pension every three years.