With the clocks going back this Sunday, you might be wondering what to do with that extra hour. Here’s a thought: you could use it to see if you are one of the 8.8m adults thought to have mislaid a pension pot. Change job and move home a few times... it’s easier than you think to lose track.

By a happy coincidence, Sunday is National Pension Tracing Day and we are all being encouraged to pay our pension some attention! Any why wouldn’t you when it's estimated there now 3.3 million lost pots, with an average sum of £9,470 in each, according to the Pension Policy Institute (PPI).

    Nearly one in five (19%) UK adults feel certain they have lost or probably lost a pension pot, according to new analysis by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, on behalf of PensionBee.

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    "Missing savings can have a significant impact later in life, potentially forcing millions to work longer than necessary to afford a comfortable retirement," says Becky O’Connor, director of public affairs at PensionBee.

    "If you can do one thing today, visit pensionattention.co.uk and use the pension tracing tools to find any lost pension pots. It only takes a few clicks, and you could substantially add to your pot," says Chris Blackwood, campaign spokesperson.

    Lost pension problem set to worsen

    With frequent job switching among younger workers, more of us working in the gig economy and the big increase in numbers joining workplace pensions via auto-enrolment, the problem is likely to get worse. As the total number of UK pension pots is expected to rise 130%, from 106 million (at present) to 243 million by 2050, the number of lost pensions could skyrocket. The value of lost pension pots in the UK has already increased by 60% per cent, or nearly £12 billion, since 2018, according to the PPI.

    Cheryl, who is 34 and lives in London, works in talent acquisition for the arts and culture industry. She’s already had around 20 jobs, including hospitality work, and short-term and interim contracts.

    "Eighteen months ago, I uncovered about £1000 in total from multiple small pots, which make up about an eighth of my current £8,000 pension pot. The main one I’d forgotten about was from a job I’d done about 18 months out of university, working as an event operations assistant for a hotel in London. The others were all small amounts from auto-enrolment into employer schemes, apart from my most recent employer at the time, a big art gallery," she says. It was only when she started consolidating all her pension pots with PensionBee, providing personal details and addresses that the lost pension flashed up.

    "It’s easy to lose track of a pension – we move jobs and homes and contact details get lost along the way. It’s a consequence of auto-enrolment that you get a pension with every job, but the risk is they go astray. It’s not a small problem either - that pension from the job you had ten years ago will have grown and you risk losing out on thousands of pounds that could be used for your retirement income," says Helen Morrissey, head of retirement analysis, Hargreaves Lansdown.

    More than 31K were calls made to the Pension Tracing Service between 1 January and 24 May this year alone. But says Helen, "in reality, it’s barely scratching the surface of the problem."

    Pension Dashboard

    There's no public launch date yet for the Government's long-awaited MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard. This will allow individuals to see their pensions information, including their State Pension, for free in one place online, and to reunite savers with lost or forgotten. As things stand, legislation is expected to be complete by 31 October 2026. In the meantime, some pension providers are creating their own commercial dashboards.

    How to trace old pensions

    1 Revisit your career

          Over your career you may work for several different employers and build a collection of different pension pots. Time to refresh your memory about all the jobs you've had since you left school or university as each of them may have had a workplace pension. Look at your CV if you can’t remember all the jobs you’ve done. Do you've pension paperwork for all of them?

          2 Look for clues

          Scour your filing cabinet or old emails for any pension statements from your previous pension providers. Make a note of any details you can find from provider name to policy number. The more you have to go on, the better. Talk to any old colleagues to see whether they kept any of the paperwork. If you’re no longer in touch, LinkedIn can be a really useful place to find them.

            3 Get in touch

            If you know which provider an old pension was with, contact them for an updated pension statement. Give them as much information as possible to help them reunite you with your pension savings, including your pension plan number, if you can, your date of birth, and your National Insurance number.

            4 Get help

            If you think you have other pensions but can't find any details, use the DWP’s Pension Tracing Service. You can call them on 0800 731 0193 - Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.

              The service is free of charge. You will need details of your former employers and the dates you worked there. Pension Tracing won't be able to tell you if you have a pension or how much it is but it will be able to give you up to date contact details. Once you have that, write to them to ask for the information you need.