How do I know who to enrol?

Which of your employees should you enrol as part of your auto-enrolment duties?

Published: 15 Dec 2025

Key points

All UK employers have a legal responsibility to enrol their eligible employees into a workplace pension.
There are three types of workers – eligible, non-eligible and entitled. See below.
You’ll need to assess your staff to work out which group they fit into as part of your legal duties.
It’s important you stay compliant throughout your enrolment journey. The Pensions Regulator has lots of guidance to help you.

Auto-enrolment is a process introduced by the UK government in 2012 that makes sure all eligible employees are put into a workplace pension scheme by their employer. As the employer, you have legal duties to complete as soon as you have your first employee. It can be complicated to work out who to enrol, so we’ve put together this article to help you meet your auto-enrolment duties with ease.

The three types of workers

When auto-enrolling your employees into a workplace pension, there are three categories to be aware of – eligible, non-eligible and entitled.

Eligible jobholders

This group of workers must be auto enrolled into your workplace pension scheme. They will:

be aged 22 to state pension age (currently 66 in 2025 but rising to 67 in 2026)
earn over £10,000 a year or £192 a week
work in the UK.

Non-eligible jobholders

Employees who meet these criteria can opt in to the pension scheme if they’d like to. You will need to contribute to their pension if they do. These workers will:

be aged 16 to 21, or state pension age to 74
earn between £6,240 and £10,000 a year.

Entitled workers

This last group of workers can join the pension scheme, but as the employer you are not required to contribute if they opt in. This group will:

be aged 16 to 75
earn less than £6,240 a year.

Assessing your workforce

You’ll need to carry out an assessment of your staff to work out who to put into your pension scheme. You can do this manually or some types of payroll software can do this automatically.

You’ll need to assess and enrol your employees as soon as your first employee starts work, even if they are your only employee at the time. This is known as your duties start date.

Whenever a new employee starts working for you, you’ll need to assess and potentially enrol them straight away. An existing employee might become eligible if they get a pay rise, or reach their 22nd birthday.

The difference between opting in and joining a scheme

Not all your staff will be eligible for auto enrolment, but they’ve still got rights when it comes to being put into the scheme if they choose that.

Non-eligible jobholders have a right to opt in to the workplace pension scheme. If they choose to opt in, they’ll need to put their request in writing, and as their employer you must enrol them and contribute to their pension.

Entitled workers can ask to join the scheme to pay into their own pension, and you must enrol them if they do. This type of worker isn’t entitled to a contribution from you, although you can still contribute if you want to.

How to use postponement

You might choose to postpone some of your auto-enrolment duties if you have seasonal or temporary staff, or if your company uses probation periods. The Pensions Regulator allows all employers to postpone their duties start date for up to three months. As the employer, you must tell your workers you are postponing their auto-enrolment within six weeks of their employment start date.

Staying compliant

Of course, your most important duty is to pay the contributions due for your workers on time. But there are also other duties under the auto-enrolment regulations.

It’s important to keep records of your assessments, enrolment dates and opt in or joining requests as part of your legal duties, and you might be asked to give these to The Pensions Regulator.

You’ll need to declare your compliance within five months of your duties start date – you can do this online with The Pensions Regulator. They also have lots of helpful information on how to stay compliant, including their declaration of compliance checklist.

To make sure you’re meeting your legal duties, remember to:

assess all worker types
complete auto-enrolment tasks before the deadline
fully understand the opt in or joining rights of your staff.

The Pensions Regulator has tools to help you complete your auto-enrolment duties on their website. If you’re still unsure, it might be helpful to speak to a financial adviser, for which there may be a charge.