State Pension Forecast: How to Check Yours (and What to Do If It's Low)

Your state pension forecast takes five minutes to check and could be worth thousands of pounds. Yet most people have never looked at theirs — and those who have often don't know what to do when the number is lower than expected.

The full new state pension is £230.25 per week in 2025/26 (£11,973 per year), rising to £241.30 per week (£12,548 per year) from April 2026. But you only get that with 35 qualifying years of National Insurance. Fewer years means less money — and gaps in your NI record are more common than you'd think.

Here's how to check your forecast, understand what it's telling you, and take action if it's short.

How to Check Your State Pension Forecast

The government provides a free online tool that shows your projected state pension based on your NI record so far.

Go to: gov.uk/check-state-pension

You'll need to sign in with your Government Gateway user ID or GOV.UK One Login. If you don't have either, you can create one — but you'll need your National Insurance number and a way to verify your identity (passport, driving licence, or payslips).

Once signed in, you'll see three key pieces of information:

1. Your projected weekly state pension — what you'd get if you continue contributing until state pension age
2. Your qualifying years so far — how many years of NI contributions count towards your pension
3. Years you can still add — how many more qualifying years you could build before reaching state pension age

This takes about five minutes. Do it now if you haven't — the rest of this article will make more sense once you've seen your own numbers.

Understanding Your Forecast

Your forecast is a projection, not a guarantee. It assumes you'll keep paying National Insurance at your current rate until you reach state pension age (currently 66, rising to 67 between April 2026 and March 2028).

The Key Numbers

• Full new state pension: £230.25/week (£11,973/year) in 2025/26, rising to £241.30/week (£12,548/year) from April 2026
• Minimum qualifying years for any pension: 10
• Years needed for full pension: 35
• Each qualifying year is worth roughly: £6.89/week (£358/year) at 2026/27 rates

If your forecast shows less than the full amount, the most likely reason is gaps in your National Insurance record.

Why Your Forecast Might Be Lower Than Expected

Several things can cause a lower-than-expected forecast:

• Gaps in employment — periods of unemployment where you weren't claiming benefits
• Low earnings — earning below the Lower Earnings Limit (£6,396 in 2025/26) in some years
• Time abroad — living or working outside the UK without paying voluntary NI
• Being contracted out — if your employer's pension scheme was contracted out of the State Second Pension (S2P) or SERPS, your starting amount includes deductions
• Self-employment gaps — not paying Class 2 NICs in some years

Contracting out is a common one that catches people off guard. If you worked for a large employer in the 1990s or 2000s, there's a decent chance your workplace pension was contracted out. You received lower NI payments in exchange for higher workplace pension benefits — but it means your state pension starting amount is reduced.

How to Check Your National Insurance Record

Your forecast tells you the headline number. Your NI record tells you why.

Go to: gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record

This shows a year-by-year breakdown of your NI contributions. Each year is marked as either:

• Full year — you paid enough NI (or received credits) to qualify
• Year is not full — you have a gap that may be fillable
• Year is not yet available — the current or most recent tax year, still being processed

Look for years marked as not full. These are the years where you can potentially take action.

What to Do If Your Forecast Is Low

If your forecast falls short of the full state pension, you have options. The most powerful one is filling NI gaps through voluntary contributions.

1. Fill Gaps With Voluntary National Insurance Contributions

You can pay voluntary Class 3 NICs to fill qualifying year gaps. In 2025/26, one year costs £923 (£17.75 per week).

Here's why this is remarkable value: paying £923 to fill one gap adds roughly £358 per year to your state pension at 2026/27 rates, for life. That's a payback period of just 2.6 years.

To put that in context:

• A 60-year-old woman filling one gap would break even by age 69
• Average life expectancy for a 66-year-old in the UK is about 86
• That's roughly 20 years of £358/year = £7,160 total return on a £923 investment

You won't find a guaranteed return like that anywhere else.

How far back can you go?

Normally, you can fill gaps going back 6 tax years. However, the government extended the deadline for filling gaps between April 2006 and April 2016 — this extension has been available for several years, so check the current deadline on gov.uk as it may close.

How to pay

Contact HMRC's National Insurance helpline on 0300 200 3500. They'll confirm which years can be filled and how much each costs (older years may be cheaper). You can pay by:

• Bank transfer
• Direct Debit (spread the cost)
• Cheque

Important: Before paying, confirm with HMRC that filling a specific year will actually increase your state pension. In some edge cases — particularly if you were contracted out — filling a gap may not help as much as expected.

2. Check for Missing NI Credits

You might have qualifying years you're not getting credit for. NI credits are awarded for:

• Claiming benefits — Universal Credit, Jobseeker's Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance
• Caring responsibilities — claiming Child Benefit for a child under 12 (even if you don't receive the payment because of the High Income Child Benefit Charge, you should still register to protect your NI record)
• Carer's Allowance — looking after someone for 35+ hours per week
• Jury service — covers the period of service

The Child Benefit one is particularly important. If one parent stays home or works part-time while the other earns over £60,000, the lower earner should still register for Child Benefit to get the NI credit — even if the actual payment is clawed back through tax.

3. Keep Working (or Claiming Credits) Until You Hit 35 Years

If you're still building your NI record, the simplest approach is to keep contributing. Every year of employment or self-employment where you earn above the Lower Earnings Limit (£6,396 in 2025/26) counts as a qualifying year.

If you're not working but claiming certain benefits, you'll get NI credits automatically. If you're a carer for a family member, make sure you're claiming Carer's Credit or Carer's Allowance.

4. Contact the Future Pension Centre

If your forecast looks wrong — or if you were contracted out and want to understand the deductions — contact the Future Pension Centre on 0800 731 0175. They can give you a more detailed breakdown and explain exactly how your pension has been calculated.

State Pension Is Just One Piece

Even the full state pension of £12,548 per year (2026/27) won't fund a comfortable retirement on its own. The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) estimates you need around £31,300 per year for a "moderate" retirement lifestyle, or £43,100 for "comfortable."

That means your workplace pension, SIPPs, ISAs, and other savings need to fill a significant gap.

See how your state pension fits into your total retirement income → Use the PoundSense pension calculator to combine your state pension forecast with your other pensions and get a complete picture of your retirement income — free, in under a minute.

The Bottom Line

Checking your state pension forecast takes five minutes and costs nothing. If it's lower than expected, filling NI gaps at £824 per year is one of the highest-return, lowest-risk financial moves you can make.

Do three things today:

1. Check your forecast at gov.uk/check-state-pension
2. Review your NI record for gaps
3. Run your numbers through our pension calculator to see how state pension fits with everything else

Don't leave free money on the table.