As of 1 April 2014 you earn your pension based solely on the amount of pensionable pay you receive. Therefore, if you are a part time employee you will add to your pension account each year based directly upon how much you earn.
Before 1 April 2014
Prior to 1 April 2014 your pension was also based on your pensionable service and, If you worked part time, you would have accrued pensionable service at a slower rate than a full time employee.
If we assume 37 hours a week is full time, an employee who worked 18.5 hours a week would have had a part time percentage of:
18.5/37 = 50.00000%
Therefore if the above employee worked for 20 years they would have earned 10 years pensionable membership in the pension scheme.
If you worked for less than 52 weeks per year, your part time percentage would have been reduced accordingly.
Further information
- Assuming you remain in the same job, chaging your hours after 1 April 2014 won’t affect the pension you earned up to 31 March 2014. This part of your pension will be based on your final pensionable pay at retirement, which is scaled up to a full time equivalent. This also means that any pay increases you receive will be taken into account when calculating your pre 1 April 2014 pension at retirement.
- Visit How is my pension calculated? for an example on how pensions were calculated for full and part time employees.
Can I access my details online?
As an active member, you can sign up for My Pension Online, which allows you to access your pension account details and calculate pension benefits estimates securely online. To find out more about this member self-service facility and sign up, please visit our My Pension Online section of this website.
