- With just 17% of self-employed people saving into a pension, Monzo and Centre for Inclusive Money at Nest are launching a new project to explore how more people in this group can build financial security for later life.
- The project will explore whether making retirement saving simpler and more automatic can help self-employed people build long-term financial security.
- These findings will be shared with the Pensions Commission, to support its review of retirement outcomes due in 2027.
The Centre for Inclusive Money at Nest – previously Nest Insight – has partnered with Monzo, one of the UK’s leading digital banks with more than 15 million customers, to tackle low levels of retirement savings seen amongst self-employed people. The organisations will work together to explore the ways that banks can support self-employed people to save for later life, bringing together seven years of Inclusive Money research and Monzo’s experience supporting hundreds of thousands of sole traders through Monzo Business.
Just 17% of the UK’s 4.4 million self-employed people are saving into a pension1, compared to almost 90% of eligible employees2. This is despite three-quarters of self-employed workers saying it’s important to put money aside for retirement (in line with the proportion of employed people who say this)3. While employees are automatically enrolled into a pension, there’s no similar mechanism for the self-employed. This, coupled with an often variable or uncertain income, makes saving for retirement more complex for self-employed people. The second UK Pensions Commission’s interim report highlights that ‘self-employed participation in pensions saving represents one of the most urgent challenges for the UK pensions system.’4
Monzo has seen first-hand how simple product design and automation can help customers build positive financial habits. Earlier this year, more than 2 million customers signed up for Monzo’s automated Savings Challenge after customers collectively set aside more than £350 million through the challenge in 2025. Meanwhile, Monzo Business customers last year set aside a total £450 million through automated Tax Pots to cover future tax bills. This project will explore whether similar behavioural design principles can help make retirement saving easier for self-employed people.
The partnership with Monzo is the latest milestone in Inclusive Money’s multi-year programme which aims to better understand the low levels of saving seen among self-employed people and test a range of approaches to encourage and enable retirement saving in a way that meets their needs. The project’s most recent research offers some of the first evidence that ‘default savings’ models hold real promise in solving the problem, while still preserving the choice and flexibility for those who do not want to, or cannot, save.5 The partnership will now take those findings into a real-world environment through a customer initiative with Monzo Business.
Insights from this work will help inform future product thinking and will also be shared with the UK Government’s Pensions Commission, to support its review into retirement outcomes due in 2027.
Ruth Persian, Associate Director of Research and Innovation at the Centre for Inclusive Money at Nest, commented:
‘Monzo’s approach to product design will help us take our research forward to the next step: moving from promising ideas to real-world solutions for real customers. We look forward to bringing together our combined expertise and finding solutions that work and support self-employed people to become more financially secure.’
Jordan Shwide, General Manager at Monzo Business, added:
‘Millions of self-employed people are missing out on the benefits of automatic retirement saving, despite many wanting to put money aside for the future. We’re excited to work with Inclusive Money to explore easy ways to help sole traders start building retirement savings and to contribute evidence that could help shape future policy. We want to help people build financial security and resilience, in line with our mission to make money work for everyone.
For any media enquiries, please contact:
Joel Llewellyn, joel.llewellyn@inclusivemoney.org.uk
About the research:
Auto enrolment has addressed pension participation and coverage issues for many traditionally employed workers. But for those working in self-employment, the current auto enrolment mechanism does not usually apply.
In 2019, the Centre for Inclusive Money at Nest began a multi-year programme of research to understand the low levels of saving seen among self-employed people – and to test a range of approaches to encourage and enable retirement saving in a way that fits with their context and meets their needs.
Find out more about Inclusive Money’s work on self-employment here.
About the Centre for Inclusive Money at Nest
Our mission is to find what really works in supporting people to be financially secure, both today and into retirement, and to drive transformational change in the system.
We build and amplify deep, rigorous insight into the lived experience of low- and moderate-income households, seeking to better understand how people actually earn, spend, save, cope with the unexpected, and invest for the future.
We develop innovative solutions grounded in that understanding. We test them in the real world. We gather robust, rounded evidence about what genuinely makes a difference. And throughout, we work with the people who have the power to act – industry, employers and government – to turn that evidence into lasting change; informing decisions and catalysing the adoption of what works at scale. We work inclusively and collaboratively across boundaries and silos, because we know no single organisation can deliver this kind of change alone.
We are building towards a fairer and more inclusive system of joined-up products and services that meet people where they are, support their diverse needs and make it easier for them to achieve good outcomes. Getting this right and improving household financial security can unlock greater individual wellbeing, social participation and economic growth.
For more information, visit: www.inclusivemoney.org.uk
About Monzo
Monzo was founded in 2015 and now serves more than 15 million customers, including more than 900k businesses. With a mission to make money work for everyone, Monzo is known for pioneering industry-first features like the Gambling Block, Call Status, Added Security, Tax Pots and the Saving Challenge, co-creating with its customers to deliver products and tools that put them in control of their finances. Monzo holds full UK and European banking licences.
1 Pensions Commission, Pensions 2050: Evidence and Future Priorities, May 2026
2 DWP, Workplace pension participation and savings trends of eligible employees: 2009 to 2024, August 2025
3 Centre for Inclusive Money (previously Nest Insight), The impact of Covid-19 on self employed people’s saving outlook, 2020
4 UK Government Pensions Commission Interim Report May 2026.
5 Centre for Inclusive Money at Nest (previously Nest Insight), Simplifying retirement savings for self-employed people, 2025