A defined benefit pension for the self-employed is not something you can start for yourself, because employers run these schemes. Earlier rights stay yours.
If you work for yourself, you cannot take out a final salary or career average pension as a plan of your own, but any defined benefit pension you built up in a job does not disappear when you go self-employed. What you can use from now on is a different kind of pension, built from your own payments. Where does an old final salary pension fit once you work for yourself? That turns on your own circumstances, which an FCA-authorised adviser will examine free of charge; the form on this page carries that request to them.
Can a self-employed person have a defined benefit pension?
Not one you set up for yourself, though you can still hold one: rights built up in a job stay yours, as the next section explains. MoneyHelper describes a defined benefit pension as "a type of workplace pension scheme" and says that "Your employer is responsible for making sure there’s enough money to pay your pension income." The promise is an income worked out from salary and years in the scheme, and a sole trader or freelancer has no employer to stand behind it. That is why a defined benefit pension for self-employed people is not something you arrange for yourself.
Owners of a small limited company are in a different position from sole traders. Whether a defined benefit arrangement is open to a company of your size, and what it would commit the business to, is a question for an adviser, and the form here gets that explained free. Older company-arranged plans for directors are covered in what an executive pension plan is; pension options for company owners are on pensions for limited company directors, and the small self-administered route is compared in SIPP versus SSAS.
MoneyHelper links them with past work for a big employer or the public sector. Whether such schemes are still open to new members is covered in are final salary pensions still available, and how they pay out in what a final salary pension is.
What happens to the defined benefit rights you built up before going self-employed
They stay yours. GOV.UK says of a workplace pension: "Your workplace pension still belongs to you." With a defined benefit scheme what you keep is not an invested pot but a promised pension: MoneyHelper says you get a guaranteed amount based on length of service and salary, which will usually grow each year, typically in line with inflation. The yearly increase on these deferred benefits is called revaluation; the Pension Schemes Act 1993 sets a legal minimum for it, tied to price rises but capped. The guide to deferred final salary pensions explains how revaluation works and how the statement reads.
Can you carry on paying in? GOV.UK says that if you become self-employed you "may be able to carry on contributing to your workplace pension" and that you should ask the scheme provider. That is a question about the rules of your particular scheme, not a right. GOV.UK also warns that someone who pays into an old pension after moving jobs may not get some of its benefits, because they may be only for current workers. For adding to a scheme you are still in, see additional contributions to a final salary pension.
Left a scheme a long time ago and lost the paperwork? GOV.UK’s Pension Tracing Service gives you contact details for a scheme, though it cannot confirm that a pension exists or put a value on it. The steps are in finding a lost pension. If you left after a short time, what you can do depends on the rules; leaving your employer with a final salary pension sets out the usual choices.
What self-employed people can use instead
GOV.UK’s guidance for someone who becomes self-employed points to Nest, which working self-employed people can use, or a personal or stakeholder pension; personal pensions, GOV.UK adds, are sometimes known as defined contribution or money purchase pensions. All of these are pots: what you retire on depends on what is paid in, how the investments do and how you take the money, and values can fall as well as rise, so you may get back less than was paid in. Which to choose belongs to the best pension for the self-employed, with Nest for the self-employed, how a SIPP works and how much to pay in when self-employed for the detail.
The State Pension: a guaranteed layer you can still build
The State Pension is the nearest thing to a guaranteed income that self-employed people can add to. GOV.UK says you need "10 qualifying years on your National Insurance record to get any new State Pension", and that the full new rate is £241.30 a week in 2026/27, according to the DWP. How self-employed National Insurance counts towards that is in the State Pension for the self-employed.
Moving old defined benefit rights into a personal pension
Going self-employed is sometimes the moment people wonder about moving an old scheme into a SIPP or personal pension of their own. MoneyHelper warns that transferring from a defined benefit scheme to a defined contribution scheme "might leave you worse off" and that a transfer cannot be reversed. The FCA says: "The FCA and The Pensions Regulator (TPR) believe it’s in most people’s best interests to keep their DB pension."
Leaving the job does not end the option to move. Sections 93 to 95 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993 can give a member who has stopped building up rights a legal right to a transfer value (a "cash equivalent"), provided the rights stopped building up at least a year before the scheme’s normal pension age and the written application is made no later than a year before that age. Before a transfer to a scheme offering flexible benefits, such as a SIPP, section 48 of the Pension Schemes Act 2015 says the trustees or managers "must check that the member or survivor has received appropriate independent advice". Regulation 5 of SI 2015/742 lifts that duty only if the safeguarded benefits’ transfer value is at most £30,000 on the valuation date; above that, advice is compulsory. For people in the unfunded public sector schemes MoneyHelper names, the Teachers’ Pension Scheme and the NHS Pension Scheme, a move is possible only to another defined benefit scheme.
Weighing a final salary transfer and what a transfer value means go into the detail.
Defined benefit versus a pot you build yourself: pros and cons
- Defined benefit: a promised income for life, usually rising each year, with the employer responsible for funding it. The cost is that you cannot set one up for yourself as a sole trader or freelancer, and the rights you already have are tied to that scheme’s rules.
- Personal pension, SIPP or Nest: open to you whatever your work, with you choosing how much goes in and how it is invested. The cost is that the outcome is not promised and the investment risk is yours.
The wider comparison is in the longer pros and cons of final salary against a pot.
More about defined benefit pensions and working for yourself
Can a small business owner have a defined benefit plan?
A sole trader has no employer behind them to run one, so a defined benefit plan of their own is not on offer. A limited company is a different case, covered in the first section of this page.
Will I lose my final salary pension if I go self-employed?
No. Your workplace pension still belongs to you, according to GOV.UK; with a final salary scheme that means a deferred pension, paid from the scheme’s pension age. Ask the scheme whether you can carry on paying in.
Is the State Pension a defined benefit pension?
Not in the workplace sense: it is paid by the government rather than by a scheme an employer runs, and what you get depends on your National Insurance record rather than on salary and years of service. See the State Pension explained.
Who can help me decide what to do with an old scheme?
Your scheme can tell you what you have built up. MoneyHelper says its pension specialists will answer questions on the phone or by webchat. Old rights, a pot of your own and the State Pension can be weighed side by side with an FCA-authorised adviser, and a call-back needs only this page’s form.