Context

The Money and Pensions Service’s Pensions Dashboard is intended to give people in the UK the ability view summary information for all their private pensions in one place. The Pensions Dashboards Programme wanted evidence to support development of a well-functioning infrastructure and data ecosystem for an engaging Pensions Dashboard. Following an initial fieldwork report in July 2021, this study was intended to investigate the attitudes, circumstances and behaviours of potential dashboard users, and their views about the pensions dashboards concept.

Pensions were defined for the purposes of this study as private pensions (workplace and personal pensions) only.

The study

The Pensions Dashboard Programme commissioned Ipsos MORI to undertake a qualitative study of UK private pension holders, to explore:

• the appeal of the concept of a pensions dashboard
• view on the potential content the dashboard would provide
• attitudes towards aspects of the dashboard customer journey
• high-level needs and tolerances for an initially incomplete service.

A sample of 110 people aged 21 to 66, reflecting a wide range of demographic, pension holding and pension engagement characteristics, were interviewed in-depth, online and by phone in 2021.

In Phase 1, 50 participants were presented with a single concept for the dashboard in a two-minute video, and were facilitated to have a broad discussion about what they saw. The remaining 60 participants in Phase 2 each saw two variations from a wider range of versions and covered more targeted points of discussion.

Key findings

• Accessibility of pensions information: there is evidence of currently unmet need for improved accessibility and visibility of pensions information, and participants were attracted by the potential to have information more readily available to them through a dashboard.
  • This was most appealing among people with more than one defined-contribution private pension, including from previous employers.
• Priority content: Information about the value of pensions and key dates such as pension start dates and retirement age were considered priority.
  • A find-only service, which lists pension entitlements but not values, appealed most among people with forgotten pensions, those early in their pensions journey and who with single or only defined-benefit pensions.
  • A find-and-view service which provide more information, including around values and projections, appealed much more broadly.
  • Inclusion of State Pension projections was considered a welcome bonus.
• Customer journeys: Government endorsement of a pensions dashboard added credibility and reassurance, particularly for online data sharing and security, as did brand familiarity and signposting to the dashboard from trusted sources.
  • Presentation of the customer interface, such as identity verification, was found to be intuitive and logical.
  • There was interest in using the dashboard interactively, including a pensions calculator or webchat, or to find out generale pensions information or guidance.
  • A dashboard was seen as one of many tools to support people to think about spending and saving, especially at key life transitions.

Points to consider

Methodological strengths or limitations

• Sampling was robust, using quotas to ensure a wide range of key subgroups were represented in the data.
• Some of the evidence presented comes from other literature.
• The report does not describe how the data were analysed and therefore how the findings were derived.

Applicability

• The findings should be of interest to policymakers, providers, employers and other stakeholders with an interest in improving private pension provision and consumer engagement.

Relevance

• The study was timely given increased pension saving due to automatic enrolment into workplace pensions since 2012, and the policy need identified for a dashboard. Note that at the time of writing this summary in Spring 2025, the Pensions Dashboard had not yet been launched.