Nobody is paying into a pension for you

Automatic enrolment began in 2012 and is probably the most successful piece of behavioural policy in modern British government. Employees were enrolled into a workplace pension by default and given the right to opt out. Almost nobody did. Millions of people acquired a retirement provision by taking no action whatsoever, which is exactly what the policy designers had bet on.

The self-employed were left outside it entirely. They took no action whatsoever too, and acquired nothing.

At the self-employed Bar there is no employer contribution, no default scheme, no annual statement arriving unbidden, and no HR department to escalate to. There is only whatever you set up and keep funding through years when receipts are excellent and years when they are not.

The mechanics then work against you a second time. The annual allowance tapers once adjusted income passes the threshold, which at a commercial set is a routine rather than exceptional problem, and it can fall a long way. Carry forward of unused allowance from the previous three tax years is the single most useful tool available to anyone with lumpy income, and it is also the one most often discovered a year after it expired. Tax relief on contributions is capped by relevant UK earnings, which for a barrister means profit, not receipts. And the lump sum allowances introduced in 2024 changed the shape of what comes out at the other end.

Underneath all of it sits a fact that doesn't apply to most self-employed people. A solicitor can sell a practice. A barrister cannot. Your goodwill is personal, it isn't transferable, and it stops when you do. There is no terminal event that converts a career into capital.

Which means the pension isn't a supplement to the eventual sale of the business. It is the sale of the business.