With the defined contribution sector facing profound changes, the Pensions Policy Institute’s (PPI) Shantel Okello explains how the organisation’s latest research aims to capture as big a picture of the landscape as possible.
Defined contribution (DC) pensions are entering another important phase of change. Automatic enrolment has made workplace saving the main route into private pensions for employees, but it does not describe the whole DC system.
People change jobs, accumulate deferred pots, save independently, consolidate pensions and make retirement choices across both workplace and individually selected arrangements.
This is why the PPI’s DC Future Book remains important. Now in its twelfth edition, it brings together the available evidence on a market that is growing in scale while becoming more complex.
By tracking participation, contributions, scheme structure, investment and retirement access over time, the Future Book provides a common evidence base for policymakers, regulators and the industry. It also helps distinguish genuine change from apparent movement caused by differences in datasets, definitions or market coverage.
A broader view of the DC system
The 2025 edition presented a summary of the latest DC market data. It examined auto-enrolment, saving levels, default investment strategies, access to pension savings and how workplace DC might develop under a range of future economic scenarios.
The 2026 edition, set to be published this October, retains this core analysis but broadens the lens. Its central theme is the evolving retail pensions market and its relationship with the wider DC system.
This is the Future Book’s first thematic deep dive into retail pensions: not simply the products sold to individuals, but the different ways in which pensions, platforms, investments, advice and administration are interconnected and accessed.
That distinction matters because a retail pension is not one uniform product, nor is it wholly separate from workplace provision.
An individual personal pension or self-invested personal pension may be used for independent saving, to consolidate deferred workplace pots, or to access retirement services. It may be arranged through regulated advice, a direct-to-consumer platform or directly with a provider. Similar product labels can therefore conceal very different levels of choice, support, cost and individual responsibility.
Following the connections
One of the main questions explored in this year’s research is what happens where workplace and retail pensions meet.
Changing jobs can leave savers with several deferred pots. Consolidation may make pensions easier to manage, but it can also change charges, investment options, guarantees, governance and access to retirement services. The research therefore considers transfers as more than an administrative process.
Retirement is another important point of connection. Pension freedoms widened the ways in which DC savings can be accessed, but not every workplace scheme or retail provider offers every option.
Savers may encounter drawdown, annuities, cash withdrawals, investment pathways, guidance or regulated advice through different parts of the market. The forthcoming Guided Retirement framework could change this boundary further by expanding structured retirement-income provision within workplace schemes.
Policy change meets market change
The 2026 edition is timely because these market questions sit alongside a substantial programme of policy and regulatory reform. The Pension Schemes Act 2026 establishes frameworks covering value for money, small-pot consolidation, scale and Guided Retirement.
Pensions dashboards are intended to make pension information easier to bring together, while the Financial Conduct Authority’s targeted support regime introduces a new form of assistance between general information and individual advice. The second Pensions Commission is also examining the adequacy, fairness and sustainability of retirement incomes.
These developments could alter where pension assets sit, how people receive support and how individuals respond to structured support and product availability. However, implementation will take time, and the effects on behaviour and outcomes are impossible to predict. The Future Book therefore focuses on the questions and trade-offs that policymakers and industry will need to monitor as the reforms develop.
“As new rules, technologies and service models develop, the central challenge will be to understand the balance of responsibility, what support is available and how value can be assessed across different consumer journeys.”
Shantel Okello, Pensions Policy Institute
The retail market also raises wider questions about value and innovation. Comparing pensions requires more than looking at a headline charge, particularly where consumers may pay separately for a wrapper, platform, investments and advice.
Digital tools can reduce friction and widen access to support, but they do not remove the complexity of transfer, investment or withdrawal decisions. Wider access to private markets may offer diversification, while also introducing considerations around liquidity, valuation, governance and cost.
Looking ahead
The 2026 Future Book does not treat workplace and retail pensions as competing destinations. Instead, it examines how they form connected parts of a wider DC system in which people may move between different arrangements throughout working life and retirement.
As new rules, technologies and service models develop, the central challenge will be to understand the balance of responsibility, what support is available and how value can be assessed across different consumer journeys.
By mapping these connections while continuing to track the wider DC landscape, the forthcoming edition aims to strengthen cross-market understanding and provide an evidence base for that debate.
Shantel Okello is a policy researcher at the Pensions Policy Institute.
