Pensions Minster, Guy Opperman, has emphasised that the government “remains committed to increasing retirement savings amongst the self-employed, warning however, there is “no straightforward” single mechanism to do this.

In response to a written parliamentary question, he confirmed plans for "widespread" trials in the summer on using tech-based solutions to improve self-employed workers' pension saving.

Opperman stated: “The government remains committed to increase retirement saving among the self-employed, and many already do save into a pension.

“The incomes, assets and self-employment experiences vary widely among this population, with considerable differences in resilience for retirement.

“Given this diversity, finding effective durable solutions is a long-term challenge; there is no straightforward single mechanism, supported by evidence, to bring self-employed people into pension saving, but we continue to urge individuals to avail themselves of the opportunities that do already exist for pension saving."

In addition to this however, Opperman highlighted the existing work that the government has done in this area, such as the trialling research programme launched in 2019/20, which looked to test a range of approaches and interventions.

“This programme includes the role of behavioural messages and savings mechanisms using financial digital platforms and uses relevant behavioural insights from automatic enrolment,” he explained.

“This will build the evidence base to find ways to make retirement saving easier for self-employed individuals.”

He also noted that further research has been undertaken in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, confirming plans for more widespread technology trials, testing behaviourally-based savings mechanisms, from the summer.

This is expected to build on findings from the first stage of trialling, which found that whilst the belief in the importance of retirement savings amongst the self-employed had been unaffected by the pandemic, confidence in retirement preparedness had fallen.

“In addition to this the sidecar savings project is a potential blueprint for much greater financial resilience in the self-employed world of pensions,” he concluded.

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