L&G is testing whether pension education should be as routine at work as health and safety training; here is what the pilot will measure, what the evidence already shows, and what it means for the employers you advise.

In reading this article you will understand:

  • How L&G’s Building Future You pilot is designed, what it will measure and what it has not yet published.
  • What current research shows about pension disengagement, how few employers offer retirement guidance, and how far financial education changes behaviour.
  • Where the regulatory line sits for employers who provide pension education, and how to raise the subject at scheme review.

In October 2026 L&G launched Building Future You, a pilot that asks a simple question: if employers can require staff to complete health and safety or cyber security training, should pension education be treated the same way? Half of the L&G employees taking part must complete the learning as part of their working day; the other half are offered exactly the same material on a voluntary basis.

Results are some way off, but the question is already live: L&G’s research and the Government’s own figures point to members who are enrolled but not engaged, and employers who are well placed to help but mostly do not.

The Engagement Gap

L&G’s Decades Ahead research, carried out by Public First, estimates that around nine million people aged 25 to 54 are not on track for an adequate retirement, five million of them aged 40 to 54, using a new adequacy measure that also accounts for housing costs.

Among 40 to 54 year olds with a defined contribution (DC) workplace pension, 41% had not interacted with it in the past year, 25% could not estimate how much they had saved and 31% had never looked for pension information or advice. The survey covered 8,008 working-age adults in October 2025.

The Pensions Commission’s interim report in May 2026 put the number of people undersaving for retirement at 15 million, and the Pensions Minister, Torsten Bell, has said the final report will be published in February 2027.

Where Employers Come In

The DWP Employer Survey 2024, published in May 2025, found that only 16% of employers had provided information or guidance on preparing for retirement, against 80% that had not. Large employers were far more likely to do so (49%) than SMEs (16%). Where guidance was offered, 69% of employers gave it on request rather than proactively. Among the few that reported barriers, the most common was fear of giving incorrect information.

L&G’s survey suggests the employer link matters. Around a quarter (24%) of people with a DC workplace pension go to their employer for advice on it, and in the past year 45% of that group checked their balance, compared with 29% of those who did not. They were also more likely to have increased contributions (21% against 11%) and changed their investments (13% against 7%). That is an association, not proof of cause: engaged members may simply be more likely to ask. The pilot is designed to test it.

What the Pilot Is Testing

Every participant gets the same short video modules and a digital quiz on pension priorities and next steps. L&G will compare the required and voluntary groups on whether members check balances, review contributions and use retirement planning tools. It has not published participant numbers, the pilot’s length or when results are due, and its own staff may not be typical of other workforces. L&G also says the pilot is not trying to prove that education alone can solve the adequacy problem.

That caution matches the wider evidence. A 2022 meta-analysis by Kaiser, Lusardi, Menkhoff and Urban in the Journal of Financial Economics, covering 76 randomised trials, 33 countries and more than 160,000 people, found that financial education has a real but modest effect: around 0.2 standard deviations on knowledge and 0.1 on behaviour, falling to roughly 0.15 and 0.06 after adjusting for publication bias. That is in line with education in other fields and cheap to deliver, but small next to what defaults achieve. Auto-enrolment (AE), which relies on inertia rather than understanding, lifted participation among eligible employees from 55% in 2012 to 89%.

The pilot’s most useful output is therefore likely to be the comparison between the groups: if required learning produces clearly more action, employers can act on that.

The Regulatory Line for Employers

Employer clients often hold back because they worry that education will be seen as advice. The joint FCA and The Pensions Regulator (tPR) guide for employers and trustees, last updated in March 2021, is clear that employers helping staff with their workplace pension or wider retirement planning will generally not need FCA authorisation. Employers can give factual information, explain how the scheme works and signpost services such as Pension Wise. They should not answer questions such as which fund to choose, suggest they can give that kind of advice, or produce material that promotes a particular product.

Employers also have more options than many realise. The employer-arranged pensions advice exemption lets employers pay for regulated advice without it becoming a taxable benefit, up to the limit set in regulations, and members can use the pensions advice allowance to take up to £500 from a DC pot, up to three times, to pay for advice. Since April 2026, providers have also been able to offer targeted support under the FCA’s new regime; L&G received FCA approval in May 2026.

What It Means for Advisers

There is no need to wait for L&G’s results. With 80% of employers offering no retirement guidance, the first question at scheme review is whether the employer offers any and, if so, whether anyone uses it. Provider data on logins, balance checks and contribution changes gives a baseline for measuring any new programme.

For employers ready to go further, the pilot raises design questions: whether learning should take place in work time, how it fits alongside targeted support from the provider, how it reaches the groups L&G identifies as most at risk (midlife savers, part-time workers and renters), and where it should lead members towards regulated advice. Benefits Guru will report on the results when they are published.

Things to reflect on for CPD

  • Which of your employer clients currently offer any retirement guidance, and how would you find out whether scheme members actually use it?
  • How would you explain the difference between information, guidance, targeted support and regulated advice to an HR team that is nervous about pension education?
  • What engagement data could you request from providers to set a baseline before an employer launches a pension education programme?
  • Would required pension education suit the culture and workforce of your largest employer clients, and which member groups would it most need to reach?