Autumn Budget 2025 Implications for pensions savers

What you need to know

• The 2025 budget, delivered by Chancellor Rachel Reeves on Wednesday 26 November 2025, contained several key pensions updates, with the most significant pensions announcement relating to salary sacrifice arrangements. Savers and employers will pay National Insurance on any salary sacrifice pension contributions above a threshold of £2,000 per year, from 6 April 2029.
• In light of the Pension Protection Fund (PPF)’s £14bn surplus, the Chancellor also announced that from January 2027 the Government will restore some inflation protection to benefits earned before 6 April 1997 for pensioners in the PPF and Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS), where these increases were offered by the original schemes.
• Aligned with the aims of the Pension Schemes Bill, the Government will enable defined benefit (DB) schemes with surplus assets to pay funds directly to scheme members who are over normal minimum pension age, if scheme rules and trustees permit it, from April 2027.
• While not raising income tax rates, the Government announced extensions to the locks on threshold increases for inheritance tax, income tax and National Insurance Contributions (NICs), and reaffirmed its commitment to the triple lock for the State Pension.