THE number of people working for themselves and saving towards a personal pension has dropped by almost a third in the last four years, according to HMRC.

The Taylor Review showed that the number of people working for themselves had increased by a third since the start of the century.

In 2001 it was 3.3 million, it had risen to 4.81 million by 2017. Still only 13 per cent are saving for a pension.

This is compared to 68 per cent of people with workplace pensions.

Although the government are talking about extending automatic enrolment into workplace pensions to the self-employed, it has not happened yet.

If you are self-employed, there are valid reasons why you may be focused on the day to day, rather than forward planning.

Planning ahead can slip to the back of your mind when you don’t have an employer to take care of it for you, and your main concern is looking after your customers.

For those working for an employer in a company, since April of this year they are obliged to pay five per cent of their salary into a pension, topped up by three per cent more by their employer. That’s eight per cent of their salary going towards retirement planning, every month.

It’s a different story if you are working for yourself. As a self-employed person, you know you have a problem when even Downing Street is worrying about you, and the residents of Number 10 and Number 11 are trying to help.

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