Workplace pension providers achieved their “strongest ever performance” in Benefits Guru’s workplace pension and auto-enrolment (AE) ratings in 2023.

Benefits Guru’s ratings aim to help advisers and employers in their decision-making process, and highlight where providers’ greatest strengths lie.

This year was the strongest performance since the ratings began nine years ago, with 10 providers being awarded 13 ‘overall gold’ awards across several product offerings.

Eight providers (Aegon, Aviva, Fidelity, Hargreaves Lansdown, Mercer, Royal London, Scottish Widows and Standard Life) achieved overall gold awards for both their workplace pension and AE offering.

The ratings also include several sub-categories, with Standard Life being the only provider to achieve a ‘clean sweep’ of overall gold awards across all sub-categories of both workplace pension and AE ratings.

This year’s ratings saw the introduction of additional benchmarking criteria, including ESG within the ‘investment & fund options’ rating, with all providers achieving a gold rating in this benchmark.

However, Benefits Guru noted that one area that experience weaker performance among some providers this year was the ‘member app & portal’ benchmark, which assessed the availability and functionality of apps and member portals for pension savers.

Benefits Guru and FTRC head of workplace research, Jason Green, commented: “We have worked with the providers over the last six months to renew the areas we benchmark as well as the questions which make up the scores.

“It’s important we continue to evolve our ratings to ensure they reflect the wider issues members and employers are experiencing.

“This year’s exceptional scores reflect how providers are constantly developing and improving their offerings to ensure the best outcomes for their members.”

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