About Pension Sprout

By Sam Parkinson · Last updated: July 2026 · 4 min read

Pension Sprout does one job: it shows you roughly how big your pension pot could be, and what yearly income that might give you.

Most pension tools want your email address before they'll show you anything, or steer you towards a product at the end. This one doesn't. You type in a handful of numbers you already know, the maths happens on your own device, and nothing is saved or sent anywhere. Try the free pension calculator and you'll see the whole thing takes about 30 seconds.

Why it exists

A pension is one of the biggest sums of money most people will ever have, yet most of us have no idea what ours is on track to be worth. The official tools are thorough but heavy going, and plenty of commercial calculators are really lead-generation forms with a result bolted on. Pension Sprout sits in between: quick, free, and with every assumption out in the open.

Who runs it

Pension Sprout is built and run by Sam Parkinson, an independent site owner with a straightforward aim: make UK pension information readable by people who don't work in finance. Sam is not a regulated financial adviser and doesn't pretend to be. What he does is read the primary sources, GOV.UK, HMRC guidance, the House of Commons Library and the official Retirement Living Standards, and turn them into plain English, with every figure dated and sourced.

Pension Sprout isn't owned by a pension provider, an adviser network or a lead-generation business. That independence is why no page on this site will ever recommend a specific product, take a commission, or ask for your details to show you a number. If a page ever points you somewhere, it's to a free, official service like MoneyHelper or GOV.UK.

How we keep the content accurate

Pension rules and figures change every tax year, so this site follows a few fixed rules. Every money figure is checked against a primary source before publishing, usually GOV.UK, HMRC guidance, the House of Commons Library or the official Retirement Living Standards. Every article shows the tax year its figures relate to and a "correct as of" date, and lists its sources at the foot. When a rule is due to change, like the minimum pension age rising in April 2028 or pensions coming into inheritance tax in April 2027, we say so rather than letting the page silently go stale. And when something does slip out of date, we'd rather hear about it and fix it than not know: the contact address is below.

How the numbers work

Nothing is hidden in the maths, so you can sanity-check it yourself:

• All figures are in today's money, adjusted for inflation, so the results mean something now.
• Your pot is projected forward with compound growth under three scenarios: cautious (4% a year), moderate (5%) and optimistic (6%), all after inflation.
• Retirement income assumes you draw 4% of your remaining pot each year.
• The State Pension is shown at the full new rate of £12,548 a year for 2026/27, starting from your State Pension age, and assumes a complete National Insurance record.
• The projection assumes you keep contributing the same percentage of your salary, with any pay rises you enter applied above inflation.

If any of those assumptions don't fit your situation, adjust the inputs and treat the output as a rough heading rather than a destination. For the thinking behind sensible targets, our guide to how much you should have in your pension by age is a good place to start, and if your employer pays in, it's worth checking whether your employer match is a good one.

What it isn't

Pension Sprout gives illustrations for general information, not regulated financial advice. Real returns aren't guaranteed and your circumstances matter. For advice tailored to you, speak to a financial adviser regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA); the government-backed MoneyHelper service can point you to one.

Keeping it free

The site is free because it carries a small number of ads. Your pension figures are never tracked, sold or stored, and everything you type stays on your device.

Get in touch

Questions, corrections or suggestions: [email protected]. If a number on this site looks out of date, we want to know.

Pension Sprout provides illustrations for general information only and does not give regulated financial advice. Figures correct as of July 2026. Before making decisions about your pension, speak to a financial adviser regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), or get free guidance from MoneyHelper.