Women in their forties drove January pension contribution surge
Women paid more into their pensions than men in January 2026, with females in their 40s driving the surge.
According to retirement firm Pensionbee, female customers contributed 104 per cent of the amount men contributed, despite only accounting for 42 per cent of total customers, and marked just the second time in the firm’s history, women allocating more.
Back in 2024, women contributed less than half of men’s totals, before this rose to just under 60 per cent in 2025.
It was also the first time women’s pension contributions surpassed men since 2018.
Increasing contributions
The majority of the increase was led by women in their 40s, who contributed a staggering 85 per cent more than men of the same age group.
The hike collided with HMRC’s January self-assessment tax deadline, suggesting that women who are self-employed or freelance scrambled to make significant last-minute lump sum contributions to take advantage of pension tax relief and beef up their savings.
It also comes as the government and industry figures urge more self-employed people to allocate money into their pensions, as a combination of lower average earnings and the inability to access automatic enrolment left many not placing enough into their retirement pot.
Maike Currie, vice president of personal finance at Pensionbee, said: “Seeing women
out-contribute men, for the crucial self-assessment month of January, is very encouraging, showing more women in their forties are in self-employment and/or are higher rate tax
payers and conscious of the importance of making pension contributions.
“This matters as ONS data also shows that earnings peak at about age 44 for women, after which income growth tends to flatten and eventually decline.”
But Currie noted that contributions by other age groups remains uneven, with women aged 18 to 29 allocating seven percent less than men, while those aged 60 to 69 allocated 26 per cent less.
Leaving employment
Pensionbee also noted that the covid-19 pandemic damaged women’s pensions savings, due to women being more likely to work in industries that felt both the physical and financial impacts of the pandemic.
Many women experienced a fall in income or left the workforce to care for children and/or sick or elderly relatives, which impacted both earnings and pension contributions.
PensionBee found that every year spent out of the workforce for unpaid care reduces a pension pot by roughly £5,000 at retirement, while switching to part-time work reduces it by £2,000.
Meanwhile, despite the January uptick, women in their 40s still have less in their pots than their male counterparts, highlighting the stark gender gap in pension savings, largely credited to women having to step away from work for caring responsibilities during their careers.
For men aged 45 to 49, the median pension pot at £138,816 is more than twice that of women at £67,975.
Currie said: “There is clearly growing engagement and a determination from women in their mid-forties in particular to bolster their retirement savings.
“However, closing the gender pension gap will require systemic reform. Women remain overrepresented among the UK’s ‘invisible workers’, falling outside the net of auto-enrolment, which has very much been designed around formal employment structures and the payroll.”