This is the third step in our five-step guide to auto-enrolment, detailing what you need to do as an employer. By your staging date, you will have to put your qualifying employees into the qualifying pension scheme. From this date, you’ll need to pay money into the pension scheme, which is known as ‘making contributions’.
The government has set minimum levels of contributions that must be paid to the workplace pension scheme by you and your employees, and these minimum contribution levels are set to increase between now and April 2019. As an employer, if you don’t pay all of the minimum total contribution, your employees will need to make up some of the difference.
The minimum total contribution to the scheme is usually based on your employees’ ‘qualifying earnings’.
The table below shows the percentage you MUST pay for each eligible employee:
| Date | Total minimum contribution | Employer minimum contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Before *05/04/2018 |
2% (including 1% staff contribution) |
1% |
| *06/04/2018- 05/04/2019 |
5% (including 3% staff contribution) |
2% |
| *06/04/2019 onwards |
8% (including 5% staff contribution) |
3% |
*The proposed dates are subject to Parliament approval
Click here to download your free checklist of everything you need to do to before, at and after your staging date.