Non-eligible jobholder

A person who doesn’t have to be auto-enrolled into a workplace pension.

They can ask to opt into an employer’s pension scheme, and their employer will have to pay into their pension pots on a regular basis. They are aged:

  • aged between 16 and 21 or aged between State Pension age (SPA) and 74 and
  • earns above £10,000 a year / £833 a month / £192 a week for the current tax year – known as the earnings trigger
    or
  • are aged between 16 and 74 and
  • have qualifying earnings between £6,240 a year (the lower earnings threshold) and £10,000 a year (earnings trigger for auto-enrolment) for the current tax year.

If you’ve been described as a ‘non-eligible’ jobholder before, you may hear yourself classed as ‘type 2’ (‘entitled’ workers are also type 2, and ‘eligible’ jobholders are known as ‘type 1’). It’s just one of the ways The Pensions Regulator is simplifying jargon to make it less complicated.