Pensions Dashboard 2026: When You Can Find Your Pension

Educational, not advice. This article explains what the Pensions Dashboards Programme is, where each public service pension scheme is on its connection journey, and what members can expect to see when the consumer-facing service launches. It does not constitute financial, tax, or legal advice. Pension Plain is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Scope: This piece covers the UK Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP), the 31 October 2026 statutory connection deadline for occupational pension schemes, what data dashboards will show, the consumer-facing rollout via MoneyHelper, and what public service scheme members (LGPS, NHS, Teachers, Civil Service, AFPS, Police, Firefighters) can expect. It does not cover commercial dashboards run by individual pension providers separately, although those will eventually exist alongside the MoneyHelper service.

Update, 15 July 2026. Two clarifications, on timing and on features. First, the deadline: public service pension schemes (NHS, LGPS, Teachers’, Civil Service, Armed Forces, Police and Firefighters’) were expected to connect under the DWP staging timetable by 31 October 2025, a date that has now passed, so your scheme should already be connected. The 31 October 2026 date still widely quoted is the final backstop for the whole system, and the schemes still completing connection before it are mostly smaller private-sector schemes, not the public service ones. Either way, you will not be able to see your pensions until the consumer service launches, still expected no earlier than the 2027/28 financial year. Second, on what you will see: the initial MoneyHelper dashboard will show a consolidated total of your estimated retirement income across all your confirmed pensions, shown monthly and annually against the year you reach State Pension age, alongside a timeline view. An earlier version of this guide said a combined total would only come in later iterations; the programme has since confirmed the consolidated view is part of the first release (for confirmed pensions). There is a new section below on why public service records can be harder to match.

Update — 20 May 2026. The Pensions Regulator launched a targeted regulatory assessment on 14 May 2026 focused on 240 defined benefit and hybrid pension schemes whose value data is “more likely to be out of date” than other scheme types. Around 2,600 schemes in total must connect to the dashboards programme, with 75% of member records already live and the 31 October 2026 final connection deadline applying to all remaining schemes. Updated dashboards guidance with two compliance checklists, one for connected schemes and one for not-yet-connected, was published alongside the initiative. Penalties for missing the connection deadline are up to £5,000 per individual trustee and £50,000 for corporate trustees. The 14 May initiative is private-sector focused, but its dashboard data accuracy requirements apply equally to LGPS administering authorities and to the NHS, Teachers’, Civil Service, Armed Forces, Police and Firefighters’ schemes that must also connect by 31 October 2026.

Update — 21 May 2026. Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) chief executive Oliver Morley confirmed at the Professional Pensions Live conference on 19 May 2026 that the consumer-facing MoneyHelper pensions dashboard will not open to the public until the 2027/28 financial year, later than many had anticipated. The 31 October 2026 scheme connection deadline is unchanged: roughly 60 million records (75% of in-scope records) are already connected and the remaining schemes must connect on time. MaPS has committed to announcing the exact public launch date at least six months in advance. The practical consequence for public service scheme members is that schemes will be plumbed in this October but you will not be able to see your pensions on the MoneyHelper service until 2027 at the earliest. Until then, the existing scheme-by-scheme access routes (member portals, NHS Total Reward Statements, LGPS annual benefit statements, Civil Service Pension Portal, Defence Business Services accounts, MyPension for Teachers) remain the way to check your accrued pension.

In short

The Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) is the government-backed initiative to let UK pension savers see all their pensions, including the State Pension and every workplace pension they have ever held, in one place online.
Occupational pension schemes have a statutory deadline of 31 October 2026 to be connected to the central dashboards infrastructure.
Around 75% of in-scope pension records are already connected (as of spring 2026), including significant portions of the public service schemes.
The first consumer-facing service will be the MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard, run by the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS), though its public launch is now expected later, no earlier than the 2027/28 financial year (see the updates above).
The State Pension was added to the dashboard ecosystem in early 2026, so when the consumer service launches you will see your State Pension forecast alongside your workplace pensions.
Commercial dashboards (run by individual pension providers or third parties under FCA authorisation) will eventually appear alongside MoneyHelper but are not part of the initial launch.

What the Pensions Dashboards Programme is

For decades, the practical problem with UK pensions has been the same: most people have several of them, scattered across employers and providers, and finding all the bits has historically meant digging through old paperwork and writing to former employers’ HR departments. The Pensions Dashboards Programme is the government’s solution: a piece of central infrastructure (sometimes called the “dashboard plumbing”) that lets a single online service show you, securely, all the pensions you have an entitlement to.

Three things have to come together for this to work:

Pension schemes have to connect to the central infrastructure and respond to “find” requests with details of any benefits held for the requesting individual. This is the statutory duty being phased in across all schemes, with a final deadline of 31 October 2026.
Identity verification has to be robust so that one person, with one online identity, can be matched to all their pension records (or at least to the records likely to belong to them) without exposing pension data to fraud.
Consumer-facing services have to be built that turn the underlying technical service into something people actually use. MoneyHelper is building the first such service.

The Pensions Dashboards Programme sits under the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS), a public body answerable to the Department for Work and Pensions. The legal basis is the Pension Schemes Act 2021 and a series of regulations setting connection deadlines and technical standards.

What you will see when the consumer service launches

The first version of the MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard, expected to launch publicly no earlier than the 2027/28 financial year, will show:

Your State Pension forecast. The amount of State Pension you are projected to receive at State Pension Age, based on your National Insurance contribution record.
A list of pension schemes you have an entitlement in. For each scheme: the scheme name, your reference number, the date your membership began (and ended, if it has), and basic categorisation (defined benefit, defined contribution, etc.).
Indicative values. Either a projected annual pension amount (for DB schemes) or a current fund value (for DC schemes), with the caveat that these are indicative figures from the scheme administrator rather than personalised guaranteed quotations.
Contact details for each scheme so you can follow up to get formal benefit statements, calculated retirement quotes, or transfer values.
A consolidated total. A summary of your total estimated retirement income across all your confirmed pensions, shown monthly and annually against the year you reach State Pension age, with a timeline view.

What it will not show:

Sophisticated personalised retirement planning across everything at once. The dashboard shows a consolidated total for your confirmed pensions (see above), but detailed modelling, scenario planning, and combining unconfirmed or overseas pensions are left to later iterations or other tools.
Transactional functionality (you cannot make changes through the dashboard; it is a view-only service).
Tax calculations or advice about how to take your benefits.
Tracing of pensions held overseas or in informal employer arrangements without a scheme administrator.

How the connection deadline works

The 31 October 2026 deadline is the latest point by which occupational pension schemes (those run by employers for their staff) must be connected to the central dashboards infrastructure. The legal duty is on the scheme trustees or scheme managers, with The Pensions Regulator (TPR) supervising compliance.

Different categories of scheme have different connection windows in the lead-up to the deadline:

Master trusts, large DC schemes, and major public service schemes were among the first cohorts connected.
The largest occupational schemes were connected during 2025.
Smaller schemes continue to be connected through 2026.
By 31 October 2026, all in-scope schemes must be connected.

Schemes that fail to connect by the deadline face TPR enforcement action. The connection is also a continuing duty: connected schemes must keep their data current and respond to “find” requests reliably.

Where each public service scheme stands

Public service pension schemes are large and varied, and their connection has been worked on in parallel by each scheme’s administrators. Here is the broad picture as of mid-2026:

State Pension

The State Pension has been connected to the dashboards ecosystem since early 2026. When the consumer service launches, your State Pension forecast will appear automatically alongside your occupational pension records.

NHS Pension Scheme

The NHS Pension Scheme is one of the largest single occupational schemes in the UK. Its dashboards connection is being delivered by NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA). Connection has been progressing through 2025 and 2026.

Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)

The LGPS is unusual in that it is administered by around 100 separate administering authorities (county councils, unitary authorities, and city councils) plus the various pension pools. Each administering authority connects to dashboards on its own schedule, but the central LGPS data standards work has been coordinated by the LGPS Scheme Advisory Board.

Teachers’ Pension Scheme

The TPS connection is being delivered by Capita through the current administration contract. The handover to Tata Consultancy Services (now expected October 2026) sits awkwardly close to the dashboards deadline; both Capita and the Department for Education have stated that dashboards connection will be maintained through the transition. See our explainer on the TPS administration handover for the operational context.

Civil Service Pension Scheme

Capita is also delivering the Civil Service Pension dashboards connection. The CSPS recovery programme is in its “critical phase” through May and June 2026 (see our coverage); dashboards connection has been a particular focus alongside the recovery work.

Armed Forces Pension Scheme (AFPS)

Veterans UK has been connecting the AFPS to dashboards as part of its modernisation work. Members with complex service histories spanning AFPS 1975, AFPS 2005, and AFPS 2015 may find that initial dashboard responses are simpler than the underlying complexity.

Police and Firefighters’ Pension Schemes

These schemes are administered by local pension authorities (police pension authorities and fire and rescue authorities), so the connection picture mirrors the LGPS pattern of many separate administrators working in parallel. The Local Government Association’s police and firefighters’ pensions technical teams have coordinated data standards.

Why public service records can be harder to match

Public service pensions are more likely than most to return a “pending” or “needs action” result, or to look incomplete at first, for reasons specific to how these schemes are built.

The McCloud remedy splits many members’ service into up to three parts. Anyone with public service pension membership across the remedy period (1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022) can hold benefits in a legacy scheme (service before April 2015), in the remedy period itself (worked out under either the legacy or the reformed rules, depending on the choice made), and in the reformed career-average scheme (service from April 2022). An estimated 3.4 million public service members are affected. A dashboard “find” request has to match you to each relevant section, and where one section matches cleanly but another does not, the scheme can return a partial or “possible match” result.
The LGPS is run by around 100 separate funds. If you have worked for more than one council or public body, you may have deferred benefits in more than one LGPS fund, and each fund matches and responds to your dashboard request on its own. Membership you never told a new fund about can sit as a separate, unmatched entry.
Armed Forces service can span three schemes. Members with service across AFPS 1975, 2005 and 2015 face a similar multi-scheme picture, administered by Veterans UK.
Often the cause is simpler: your details do not line up. The Pensions Regulator gives the example of a record where the National Insurance number and date of birth match but the surname does not, which commonly happens after marriage if the scheme was never told. That is why keeping your details current with every scheme matters most (see the checklist below).

What members can do now

Until the consumer service opens to the public (now expected no earlier than the 2027/28 financial year), the dashboards programme runs entirely in the background as far as members are concerned. There is nothing you need to do to “sign up” for dashboards; the connection happens at the scheme level.

The useful preparatory things to do, with or without dashboards, are:

Check your contact details with every pension scheme you remember being a member of. The matching algorithm uses personal details (name, date of birth, National Insurance number, address history) to link you to records. Out-of-date addresses in old scheme records can cause records to be missed.
Locate your National Insurance number. The State Pension component of dashboards relies on the NI number; you will need it on hand to access the consumer service.
Keep records of any pensions you have transferred out. Transferred pensions will not appear on dashboards from the scheme you left; they will appear (eventually) from the scheme they were transferred into.
Check your State Pension forecast now. You can already do this at gov.uk/check-state-pension. The dashboard will not change the forecast; it will just consolidate the view.
Check the latest statement from every public service scheme you have belonged to (LGPS annual benefit statement, NHS Total Reward Statement, Teachers’ MyPension, the Civil Service Pension Portal, Defence Business Services for the Armed Forces) and make sure the service history and figures look right.
If you have moved between LGPS funds, tell the new fund about your earlier membership so the records can be linked rather than sitting as separate entries.
If you have McCloud-remedy-affected service (public service employment between April 2015 and March 2022), check whether your scheme has sent you a Remediable Service Statement or contacted you about your legacy-versus-reformed choice; unresolved remedy cases are a common source of incomplete records.
Do not panic if your initial dashboard view is incomplete. Records that are not matched on the first attempt can still surface later as schemes refine their data and matching algorithms improve.

How to search for your pensions on the dashboard

When the pensions dashboards consumer service opens, the search itself is simple. You verify your identity through GOV.UK One Login, enter your name, date of birth, National Insurance number and address, and the dashboard queries every connected scheme and your State Pension for you. You do not need to know your scheme names, policy numbers, or who runs each pension. Here is how it will work.

You prove your identity once. You verify yourself through GOV.UK One Login (photo ID or a Post Office check, plus an email address and mobile number for a security code) before you can see any pension data.
You enter a few details, not a list of pensions. You give your name, date of birth, National Insurance number, and address history. That becomes a single “find request” sent to every connected scheme at once. Your details are not held in a central store.
Matches come back in three groups: confirmed, pending, needs action. A “confirmed” pension is ready to view. “Pending” means a scheme has matched you but needs a few more days, with nothing for you to do. “Needs action” means a scheme has found a possible match and wants a bit more (often to confirm your National Insurance number) before it confirms, or it gives you the provider’s contact details.
Your State Pension shows up the same way. Your State Pension forecast appears as one more connected entry alongside your workplace pensions, not as a separate search.
You always make the first move. A genuine scheme or provider will never phone, text, or email you first about a dashboard match. If someone contacts you out of the blue claiming to be “from the pensions dashboard”, treat it as a likely scam.

None of this is open to the public yet. Schemes must be connected by 31 October 2026, but the consumer service will open later, expected no earlier than the 2027/28 financial year, and the government has promised at least six months’ notice before it does.

Identity verification and security

Pension dashboards have an obvious fraud-attractive quality: a single online view of every pension a person holds. The programme has built identity verification using GOV.UK One Login (the cross-government authentication service replacing GOV.UK Verify and individual departmental logins).

To use the consumer dashboard you will need to verify your identity through GOV.UK One Login. The process typically requires:

A valid UK photographic ID (passport or driving licence).
Your National Insurance number.
An email address and mobile phone number for multi-factor authentication.

Pension scams routinely target people around major pension events. The Pensions Regulator and the FCA have already warned that scammers may try to exploit the dashboard launch by posing as official MoneyHelper-branded services. The genuine service will be accessible through GOV.UK and MoneyHelper’s official domain only. Be cautious about any “pensions dashboard” emails, calls, or texts that ask for bank details or pressure you to transfer your pensions.

The operational failure and error-handling regime

The Pensions Dashboards Programme has published guidance on what happens when scheme connections fail, time out, or return incorrect data. From a member’s perspective this matters because some dashboard searches will not return everything on the first try.

The programme has built retry patterns, error reporting, and a defined process for schemes to flag temporary unavailability. When you search via the dashboard, the system attempts to match you against each connected scheme; if a scheme times out or fails the match, the result will indicate that the scheme could not respond, rather than confirming you have no benefits there. You can re-query later.

What comes after the initial launch

The initial MoneyHelper consumer launch is the beginning rather than the end. The programme’s roadmap continues to:

Authorised commercial dashboards. FCA-authorised firms (including major pension providers and aggregator platforms) will be able to run their own dashboards, drawing on the same central infrastructure but with their own user experience and added features.
Enhanced data. Later iterations are expected to provide richer benefit information, including more reliable consolidated retirement projections, asset class breakdowns for DC pots, and clearer treatment of guaranteed and discretionary benefits.
Linkage to other services. Pensions dashboards will eventually integrate with retirement-planning tools, scam-prevention services, and possibly broader financial-wellbeing platforms.

None of these are guaranteed by a specific date. The programme has, throughout its life, prioritised getting the basic infrastructure working reliably over launching every feature at once.

FAQ

Will the dashboard show pensions from before I had a National Insurance number?

If a scheme has your National Insurance number in its record, matching is more reliable. Some very old records, particularly from before the 1980s, may not include NI numbers, in which case matching depends on name, date of birth, and address history. The dashboard programme has been clear that some old records may not match cleanly and members should expect to follow up with schemes individually for very long-dormant entitlements.

Will the dashboard show defined benefit pensions accurately?

The dashboard will show an “estimated retirement income” figure for DB pensions, calculated by the scheme administrator. This is indicative rather than a personal benefit quotation. For an exact figure, contact the scheme directly using the details shown on the dashboard. The dashboard is the discovery tool; the scheme is the source of authoritative figures.

Will the dashboard show how much my pension would be worth if I transferred it?

No. Cash equivalent transfer values are calculated by the scheme on request and only valid for a limited window (typically three months). The dashboard shows your accrued entitlement under the scheme rules, not a transfer value. If you want a transfer value, you ask the scheme directly.

Can I use the dashboard if I live overseas?

The MoneyHelper service is available to anyone who can verify their identity through GOV.UK One Login, which generally requires a UK photographic ID. UK nationals living overseas with valid UK identity documents should be able to use it. Foreign nationals who have UK pension entitlements but no UK identity documents will likely need to follow scheme-by-scheme processes until commercial dashboards add international identity routes.

What if my scheme has not connected yet?

By 31 October 2026 all in-scope schemes must be connected. If you cannot find a pension you know you should have on the dashboard, that almost always reflects a matching issue rather than a non-connection issue. Contact the scheme using the records you have, ask them to confirm your details, and try the dashboard again after a few weeks.

Will the dashboard ever let me consolidate my pensions or take action through it?

Not in the initial version. The MoneyHelper service is read-only. Later commercial dashboards may add transactional features under FCA authorisation, but transferring or drawing pensions will continue to require formal contact with the scheme administrator and, where appropriate, regulated financial advice.

Pension Plain’s take

The Pensions Dashboards Programme has been a long, careful, and sometimes slow piece of public infrastructure work, and the value will become obvious only when ordinary people can see all their pensions in one screen for the first time. The consumer launch, now expected no earlier than the 2027/28 financial year, is the moment to put a calendar entry against. Between now and then, the most useful thing any member can do is the boring thing: keep your contact details current with every scheme you remember being part of, locate your National Insurance number, and treat any “pensions dashboard” message that arrives by email or phone with the same scepticism you would apply to a bank fraud attempt.

Information, not advice. This article explains the Pensions Dashboards Programme as a member-facing service for public service pension scheme members. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice. Pension Plain is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. If you need a personal recommendation about your pensions, speak to a qualified, FCA-authorised financial adviser via the FCA register or MoneyHelper.

What is the Pensions Dashboard and when can you use it to find your public sector pension?