Summer is all but over, the mornings and evenings are gradually getting darker, making the commute that little bit gloomier, and Christmas is still three months away.

But fear not; it is Pension Awareness Week, the one bright spot in an otherwise depleted calendar.

For those unfamiliar with it, the campaign aims to encourage people across the UK to take simple steps towards understanding and improving their retirement finances.

And it would be fair to say that the need to engage with retirement planning is more urgent than ever.

The Pensions Commission confirmed earlier this year that more than 15 million people are undersaving for retirement.

There are several reasons for this, from contribution levels and earnings to cost-of-living pressures and the gender pensions gap, but a lack of awareness is undoubtedly part of the problem.

This week, research from HMRC revealed that one in eight adults (12.5 per cent) have never checked their state pension forecast.

Notably, 45 to 54-year-olds were more likely than any other age group to have never checked it, despite being at a crucial point in their retirement planning.

Meanwhile, research from Mylo at Aegon found that only two in five UK adults knew where all their private and workplace pensions were held.

However, even those who know where their pensions are may not necessarily understand what they are paying for them.

Moneybox found that 84 per cent of people did not know how much they were paying in pension fees, although almost a third recognised that small differences could add up over several decades.

These findings all point towards a familiar problem: Pensions remain out of sight and out of mind for too many people.

Some do not have a pension at all. For many others, a small contribution quietly leaves their salary each month, but little thought is given to where that money goes, how it is invested or what income it may eventually provide.

Pension Awareness Week therefore represents a valuable opportunity for savers to pause, take stock and ask some fairly basic questions. Where are my pensions? How much have I saved? What am I paying in charges? Am I contributing enough? And what could my savings realistically provide in retirement?

Consolidating old pension pots could help some people see their overall position more clearly.

Monzo general manager of wealth, Jo Phillips, stressed that finding forgotten pensions is only the first step, arguing that greater visibility could prompt people to take further action.

“Real financial confidence comes from seeing your retirement savings alongside your everyday money.

“When people can actually see and engage with their future money regularly, they feel far more motivated to grow it.”

Pension charges should also form part of this check-up.

As Moneybox director of personal finance, Brian Byrnes, pointed out, people understandably spend more time considering how much they contribute than what their pension costs to manage.

“The cheapest pension isn’t automatically the best pension. It is important to compare them like for like and ensure you’re getting good value for your money.”

The arrival of pensions dashboards should eventually make part of this process easier by allowing people to view information about their pensions together.

For those who have changed employers several times, losing track of a pot or two along the way, that could be transformative.

But dashboards cannot make decisions for people. Nor can automatic enrolment, despite its success in bringing millions more workers into workplace pensions.

Gallagher benefits consulting leader, Mark Pemberthy, summarises this distinction well: “Simply having a pension is not the same as having a retirement plan.”

That brings us to the key message: Nobody needs to become a pensions expert overnight, and reviewing retirement plans does not have to mean drawing up a perfectly calibrated financial strategy.

But simply locating an old pension, checking a state pension forecast, reading an annual statement, or increasing contributions slightly could make a huge difference.

Pension Awareness Week will not solve the UK’s retirement adequacy challenge by itself.

But if it encourages more people to spend a few minutes looking at their pensions rather than another year avoiding them, it will have done something worthwhile.

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