Deferred final salary pensions: how they grow and what you get

A defined benefit pension left with a former employer is called a deferred pension: it stays yours, is revalued until you claim it, and the scheme can tell you the figure.

If you moved on from a final salary or career average scheme, you did not lose what you had built up. It sits in the scheme as a deferred benefit; what follows is how it grows, what the paperwork shows and what you can do with it. Matching a statement to the rest of your retirement plans is work for an FCA-authorised adviser, and this page's form, which costs nothing, leads to one.

What you are holding when you leave a defined benefit scheme

MoneyHelper's name for it is a "deferred pension", and you are a "deferred member". It remains your pension after you leave, as GOV.UK confirms. Nothing more is paid in by you or your employer, and the scheme administrator keeps the record.

Whether you are entitled to a preserved pension at all depends on length of service. Under section 71 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993, a member whose pensionable service ends before normal pension age is entitled to short service benefit if they have "at least 2 years’ qualifying service". Qualifying service can come from more than one period, and can include service in another scheme that was linked to this one. Below two years, GOV.UK says the scheme's rules may instead offer your contributions back or a "cash sum transfer" elsewhere.

The amount you hold is not a pot. It is a promise of a yearly pension, starting at the scheme's normal pension age, worked out from your service and pay when you left; what a final salary pension is explains the arithmetic. If your leaving was a redundancy, what happens to a final salary pension on redundancy covers the extra questions that raises.

How a deferred pension grows before you claim it

MoneyHelper says a final salary pension generally rises by a set amount each year after you leave, so inflation does not erode it. The legal minimum comes from Part IV of the 1993 Act. Section 84 requires a final salary benefit to be revalued by the final salary method in Schedule 3, with the percentages set by order every calendar year; for a career average or flat-rate benefit, the trustees may instead use the average salary or flat rate method.

Three features of the Schedule matter.

• It tracks prices, with a ceiling. The percentage is the lesser of the rise in "the general level of prices in Great Britain" over the reference period, which ends each 30 September, and a maximum rate. For a 12-month period the higher maximum is 5 per cent and the lower maximum 2.5 per cent.
• Which ceiling applies depends on when you built the pension. The lower maximum came in with section 101 of the Pensions Act 2008, which was brought into force on 6 April 2009. If you left between 1 January 1991 and that date the higher percentage applies throughout; if you left later, the higher percentage covers service before it and the lower percentage covers service from then on. Earlier leavers have narrower rules tied to service from 1 January 1985.
• The reference is your normal pension age. The Act uses the order made in the last calendar year before you reach normal pension age, and the revaluation period matching the complete years between leaving and that age. It applies where that gap is at least 365 days.

For scale, the Occupational Pensions (Revaluation) Order 2025, made on 19 November 2025 for Great Britain, is the one for people reaching normal pension age in 2026. Two of its rows, as printed:

— Occupational Pensions (Revaluation) Order 2025 (SI 2025/1211), accessed 20 October 2026. A later Order governs anyone reaching normal pension age after 2026.

The Act's revaluation leaves out any guaranteed minimum pension, covered in whether a guaranteed minimum pension increases. Scheme rules can promise more than the statutory amount, and public service schemes set out their own increases: the member site of the Local Government Pension Scheme (England and Wales) says a deferred pension "will increase each April in line with the cost of living".

Reading a deferred pension statement

The Disclosure Regulations 2013 say what a deferred member can ask for. Under regulation 16, a member of a defined benefit scheme can request a benefit statement, once in any 12 months, and the scheme must supply it "no more than two months" after the request. For a deferred member the content in Schedule 5 includes:

• the date your pensionable service started and the date it ended;
• a summary of how your benefits and any survivors' benefits are calculated, and details of any deduction;
• the amount of your benefits and survivors' benefits payable from the date benefits become payable;
• your pensionable pay on the date your service ended.

Many schemes also send a yearly statement unprompted; MoneyHelper's lost-pensions page, as archived in December 2025, says most do. Worth asking the administrator for in writing: the pension at normal pension age, the pension at another age, the lump sum on offer, and the revaluation applied.

The transfer value is a different figure from the pension itself; how a transfer value is worked out explains it.

Claiming earlier or later than the scheme's normal age

Whether a deferred pension can be taken before or after the scheme's normal pension age, and how much it changes, is set by each scheme's own rules and factors, not by one national table. The LGPS gives one example: its member site says that taking a pension before Normal Pension Age "will normally be reduced because it is being paid earlier" and that after it "will be increased". It also says a deferred LGPS pension can generally be taken between age 55 and 75, the earliest age rising to 57 from April 2028. Other schemes differ; your statement or administrator has your scheme's factors.

Leaving the pension unclaimed past the scheme's normal age is separate from delaying your State Pension, which has its own rules in the State Pension guide. How reductions for early retirement are worked out and retiring early in the UK take the early side further, and your options when you retire covers the claiming stage.

Timing can turn on tax, other pensions and health. Want those weighed together? The trade-offs are what an FCA-authorised adviser works through; you can ask for an introduction free of charge through the form on this page.

Moving it elsewhere: the transfer right and the £30,000 test

A deferred member has a legal right to ask for a cash equivalent transfer value. Section 93 of the 1993 Act sets conditions, including that, for benefits that are not flexible benefits, the member "stopped accruing those rights at least one year before normal pension age", and section 95 sets the same one-year deadline for applying. From an unfunded public service scheme, section 95 allows a transfer only into a scheme whose benefits are not flexible benefits, which rules out a defined contribution pot.

On its consumer page the FCA says that it and The Pensions Regulator regard keeping a DB pension as the better course for most people, and it warns that a transfer cannot be reversed. Depending on the value, advice may be a legal requirement: under regulation 5 of SI 2015/742, as substituted from 6 April 2018, advice must be checked unless the transfer value of your safeguarded rights comes to £30,000 or less at the valuation date, a value taken before any underfunding reduction. The transfer value guide and the advice requirement for defined benefit transfers cover the detail.

Keeping track of it, and what happens if the employer fails

Deferred pensions go missing when a scheme cannot reach the member, so MoneyHelper's archived page advises making sure the provider has your current contact details; keep your last statement too. If you no longer know who runs the scheme, the GOV.UK Pension Tracing Service needs an employer or provider name and gives contact details only, not whether a pension exists or its value. How to find a lost pension walks through the steps.

If the employer goes bust and cannot pay, GOV.UK says the Pension Protection Fund usually protects you. What the Pension Protection Fund is and how it pays and whether final salary pensions are protected give the detail. A scheme closing to new benefits is a different situation (see the FAQ below).

Questions about deferred defined benefit pensions

Does a deferred final salary pension go up with inflation?

Usually, yes. The legal minimum follows price inflation, capped at 5% or 2.5% for a 12-month period depending on when the pension was built (see above), and scheme rules can give more. Public service schemes follow their own rules.

Does a frozen final salary pension still grow?

That depends on what "frozen" means for your scheme. If the scheme closed to new service, the administrator can tell you whether your pension is treated as deferred and how it is revalued; closures are covered here.

What is a deferred pension statement?

It is the scheme's written record of your deferred benefit. Regulation 16 of the Disclosure Regulations 2013 lets a deferred member ask for one once in any 12 months, to be supplied within two months.

How much deferred pension will I get?

Start from the statement's figure at the scheme's normal pension age, and ask whether it already includes revaluation up to that age. The scheme can also quote a different starting age.

Can I defer my defined benefit pension past retirement age?

The LGPS, for one, says a pension taken after Normal Pension Age "will be increased"; the rule belongs to each scheme. Ask the administrator whether the pension and any lump sum change for a late start.

Are there contributions to a deferred pension?

Once you stop paying in, MoneyHelper says your benefits continue to be managed by the scheme. The benefit is revalued, but no new service is added to it.

Holding several deferred pensions? Every scheme named on the form on this page hands the adviser firm that rings you something concrete to start from, and asking costs nothing.

Sources, read 20 October 2026: Pension Schemes Act 1993, sections 71, 83, 84, 93 and 95 and Schedule 3; Pensions Act 2008, section 101; Occupational Pensions (Revaluation) Order 2025 (SI 2025/1211); SI 2015/742, regulation 5 (as substituted from 6 April 2018); Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2013, regulation 16 and Schedule 5; MoneyHelper, What happens to my pension if I leave a job or opt out? (archived 20 March 2026), Defined benefit pension schemes explained (archived 26 July 2026) and Tracing and finding lost pensions (archived 8 December 2025); GOV.UK, changing jobs and taking leave, protection for your pension and find pension contact details; FCA, Considering a defined benefit pension transfer; LGPS member site, Deferred benefits and Taking your pension.