How much of your pension is actually British?
Ask people how much of their pension is invested in Britain and they guess about 40%. The real figure is under 5%, and in the default funds at Aviva and PensionBee, a single American chip company outweighs every British company combined.
Jordan Walker
Last year, a think tank asked more than 1,000 working Britons with a pension a simple question: how much of it do you think is invested in UK companies?
The average answer was 41%.
The real figure, for the workplace pensions most of them pay into, is 4.9%. That's the share of UK defined contribution pension money held in British shares, according to New Financial, the think tank that ran the survey. Savers guessed five to 10 times too high.
Put simply, for every £100 in a typical workplace pension, about £5 sits in British companies. At Aviva and PensionBee, the default funds now hold more of a single American chip company, Nvidia, than of all UK shares combined.
Here's how that happened, and how to see which camp your own pension is in.
From 53% to 4.4%
In 1997, the picture looked very different. UK pension funds held 53% of their money in British shares, New Financial estimates. By its 2024 count, across all UK pension funds, the figure had fallen to 4.4%.
That number gets around. MPs quoted it in a Westminster Hall debate last November. It also comes up whenever people ask why the London stock market feels stuck.
The start date matters too. Until October 1979, exchange controls made it hard for British savers to invest abroad at all. Even after Margaret Thatcher's government scrapped them, pension funds had a tax reason to stay at home: they could reclaim a tax credit on dividends from UK companies. In his first Budget, on 2 July 1997, Gordon Brown abolished that credit for pension funds, raising roughly £5bn a year for the Treasury. British shares lost their tax edge, one of several pushes behind the long slide that followed.
Part of the fall has little to do with Britain. The old final salary schemes promised a set income for life, and a promise like that behaves a lot like a bond: fixed payments, on fixed dates, for decades. Today 96% of those schemes are closed to new members. With fewer people paying in and more drawing out, they stopped chasing growth and started matching what they owed.
The rules pushed them the same way. A new accounting standard, issued in 2000 and fully in force by 2005, put pension deficits straight onto company balance sheets, so every stock market fall dented the parent company's accounts too. Between 1997 and 2021, UK pension funds cut their overall allocation to shares from 73% to 27% and nearly quadrupled their allocation to bonds, from 15% to 56%.
Much of that money went to the government. UK pension funds and insurers held £443bn of gilts at the end of March 2026, about a fifth of all the bonds the government borrows with. Together, they're the second-biggest group of lenders to the government, after overseas investors.
The rest of the story is about the kind of pension most working people now have: the workplace pot you were automatically enrolled into. That money still goes into shares, mostly. It follows the size of each market.
Why your pension buys the world by size
Most workplace pensions put you in a "default" fund unless you choose otherwise. Many of these now buy the world's stock markets by size: the bigger a company or country, the bigger its slice of your money.
In the global index many of these funds follow, US companies make up 64% and the whole UK just 3%. Nvidia alone is about 5%, more than HSBC, Shell and AstraZeneca put together. As Nvidia grew, so did its slice of every pension tracking that index.
Supporters say spreading money worldwide is safer, and it has paid off lately. In one quarter alone, the three months to June 2026, UK shares returned 4.7% against 15.3% for the global index, according to Scottish Widows. Savers aren't so sure. In New Financial's survey, two thirds said pensions should invest more in Britain, even if returns were lower.
Which camp is your pension in?
Two default funds can look identical on your payslip and make very different bets underneath. Here's where some of the biggest names sit.
Aviva. Its My Future Focus default puts savers more than 15 years from retirement into a fund that, at the end of August 2026, held 4.3% in Nvidia and 3.0% in all UK shares. Its next stage, for savers 15 to 10 years from retirement, looks much the same: Nvidia 3.6%, UK shares 2.6%. By Aviva's own breakdown, about 60% of that first fund sits in US shares.
PensionBee. Its default plan for savers under 50 is almost entirely shares, tracking a global index. At the end of September 2026, the UK made up 3% of the plan and Nvidia alone 6.1%.
Aegon. Its Universal Lifestyle default had about 55% of its growth stage in North American shares and just 2.4% in UK shares in June 2026.
Scottish Widows. In 2025 it was reported to be planning to cut UK shares in its highest-growth portfolio from 12% to single digits. It told the Financial Times that its new default takes a market-weighted approach to global shares, in line with other providers.
People's Pension. UK companies made up 7.3% of the shares in its default fund in August 2026, or about 5.7% of the whole fund. Nvidia is its biggest single holding, at 2.77%, still well behind Britain. People's Pension has also pulled back from America: US companies are 49% of its shares, against about 64% in the index. Its chief investment officer, Dan Mikulskis, has said the concentration of the market deserves serious discussion.
Royal London. Its workplace default splits the shares it holds 20% UK, 67.5% global and 12.5% emerging markets. In its main growth portfolio, that worked out at 16.7% of the fund in British shares in August 2026. Royal London raised its UK weighting in 2025 to make its portfolios more resilient, then trimmed it in July 2026 to add emerging markets, while still calling UK shares an important diversifier. From December, it is moving savers to a new default, which it says may invest more in shares for those not yet at retirement.
Nest, L&G and the other big providers publish what their funds hold too. The steps at the end of this article show how to find yours.
The pension that made its own call
There's one thing a market-weighted pension will never do: buy something that isn't in the index. Bitcoin itself isn't a company and doesn't sit in any of these share indices. An index fund might own shares in companies that hold some, but it will never drift into owning Bitcoin the way so many have drifted into Nvidia. If a pension holds Bitcoin directly, someone chose it. (If you're new to Bitcoin, our beginner's guide starts from zero.)
In October 2024, the trustees of one small UK pension scheme did exactly that. Advised by the pensions consultancy Cartwright, the unnamed final salary scheme, worth about £50m, put 3% of its assets into Bitcoin, roughly £1.5m. It held the Bitcoin directly rather than through a fund, in offline cold storage secured by three institutional custodians. It was the first UK pension scheme known to have done so.
Bitcoin was trading just above £51,000 when they bought. A year later, Cartwright reported the holding was up 56%. The price has since dropped back, and at around £61,000 on 22 October 2026, it sits roughly 20% above what the trustees paid. That's the price, not necessarily the scheme's result. Cartwright set the holding up so that profits could be "taken quickly as and when they arise", so if the trustees trimmed some on the way up, they may have locked in more than today's price suggests.
Keeping the slice small was the point. Bitcoin's price has fallen by half or more several times in its short history, so at 3% a bad year barely dents the scheme, while a good one can still make a real difference. Cartwright described it as a small allocation with the potential for a big positive impact. (If you're curious how individuals approach the same question, our guide to where to hold Bitcoin is a good place to start.)
It also flips everything above on its head. Your default fund will keep buying more of whatever the index says has grown biggest, and it will never buy Bitcoin itself by accident. That part still needs a human.
How to see what your own pension owns
This takes about five minutes.
Find your fund. Log in to your pension provider's website or app and look for the name of the fund you're in. If you never chose one, you're in the default, often with a name that includes "lifestyle", "target date" or "growth".
Find the factsheet. Search the fund's name plus "factsheet". Providers publish them, usually every month or quarter.
Check two things. The asset allocation shows how much is in UK shares against US and global shares. The top 10 holdings show which companies you own most of.
Know your options. Most schemes let you switch to other funds, including UK-focused, ethical or global options. Check the charges first, and if you're unsure, free government-backed guidance is available from MoneyHelper.
FAQ
What is my workplace pension invested in? Most workplace savers are in their provider's default fund, which typically holds a mix of global shares and bonds, with the share of bonds rising as you near retirement. Your fund's factsheet lists the exact split and its biggest holdings.
How much of the average UK pension is invested in UK shares? For workplace defined contribution pensions, New Financial puts it at 4.9% of assets (2025). Across all UK pension funds, its 2024 figure was 4.4%, down from 53% in 1997.
Why do UK pensions invest so little in British companies? Two reasons. Older final salary schemes moved out of shares and into bonds as they closed. Newer workplace pensions increasingly invest in proportion to the global stock market, where the UK is only about 3% of the total.
Can I choose to invest more of my pension in the UK? Usually, yes. Most schemes offer alternative funds, including UK-focused ones. Check the charges and consider free guidance from MoneyHelper before switching.
Do any UK pension funds hold Bitcoin? In October 2024, an unnamed UK final salary scheme advised by Cartwright put 3% of its assets into Bitcoin, the first UK pension scheme known to have done so. Bitcoin's price is highly volatile, and this is education, not financial advice.
Jordan Walker is the founder of The Bitcoin Collective and the Bitcoin Business Network. He organised the UK's first Bitcoin-only conference, hosts The Bitcoin Collective podcast, and writes the weekly newsletter read by thousands of UK professionals.
Important information. This article is for information and education only. It is not financial, investment or pension advice, and The Bitcoin Collective is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. The value of investments, including pensions and Bitcoin, can fall as well as rise, and you could get back less than you put in. Bitcoin is highly volatile, and past performance is not a guide to the future. Mentions of pension providers and funds are for illustration, not recommendations. Before changing how your pension is invested, check the charges and consider free, government-backed guidance from MoneyHelper, or speak to a regulated financial adviser.
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