Two thirds would stay in an auto-enrolment workplace savings scheme

55% of employees say the pandemic has made them more aware of the importance of saving for the future and only 11% feel like they can’t afford to put money aside at present.

52% said they would be more likely to save if their employer set it up for them, or if it came out of their salary directly - like national insurance contributions.

62% would stay in a workplace savings scheme if their employer automatically put them in. This increases to nearly seven in ten (69%) if the employer contributes too.
Whilst 22% are not sure what they would do, only around one in ten would definitely come out of the scheme – a similar opt-out rate to pensions.

18-24 year old workers are now twice as likely to say they are thinking about their future finances (58%) than just focusing on today (31%). In fact 44% of this age group say they ‘saved more than ever’ since March 2020 – saving almost £3,000 on average.

Despite these findings, there are still some people who are not thinking about the long term, with one in five (19%) people in the UK having no savings or investments at all.

Ben Pollard, CEO and Founder at Cushon, said: “It’s great to see that attitudes towards saving are slowly changing for the good, particularly among young people who are now twice as likely to think about the future than the here and now. But there is still much more that could be done to support those who aren’t in this mindset.

“Similar to pensions prior to auto enrolment, it’s clear that inertia plays a big part. We believe that the Government should look to allow employers to automatically enrol employees into workplace saving schemes albeit with safeguards in place, such as education around saving versus debt repayment. We know from our research that the appetite is there among employees and, even without an employer contribution, the majority would remain in a scheme. In the meantime, employers should think about setting up workplace savings schemes as part of their benefits offering and even consider contributing.”