A quantitative assessment of the case for Collective Defined Contribution pensions

Christos A. Christou  |  PMI Professional Trustee  |  April 2026

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Executive Summary

This paper examines CDC and compares it to DC. It argues that CDC may be materially better suited to the needs of disengaged savers — the majority of the 22 million auto-enrolled workers — than the current default DC pathway. For the minority who are financially sophisticated, well-advised and engaged, flexible individual DC has genuine merit. For the majority who are not, it is structurally inadequate.

The UK pension system is sleepwalking into an adequacy crisis. Auto-enrolment successfully brought 22 million workers into pension saving. It did not solve the adequacy problem. IFS projections show that the median DC wealth at retirement among those with some DC wealth will be approximately GBP74,000-131,000 depending on birth cohort — generating annual income, including the state pension, of GBP14,500-16,600 per year under the conventional safe withdrawal rate. The PLSA moderate retirement standard is GBP31,300. The gap is structural, not incidental.

Policy makers have recognised the accumulation problem and the Mansion House Accord of April 2026 — committing seventeen major DC providers to 10% private markets allocations — is a genuine step forward. But it is insufficient for two reasons. First, the primary vehicle being used  the Long-Term Asset Fund, incorporates liquidity buffers and fee layers that erode much of the private markets return premium. Second, and more fundamentally, the accumulation problem is only half the challenge. The decumulation problem — converting accumulated pots into adequate retirement income — remains entirely unsolved by the Accord.

CDC addresses both problems simultaneously. During accumulation it removes the lifecycle de-risking handbrake that costs DC members c. 3% per annum in the critical final twelve years when their pot is largest. During decumulation it converts individual longevity self-insurance into collective pooling, shifting the effective payout rate from 3.5% (individual safe withdrawal rate) to c.9 % (collective payout at cruising altitude) — because the perpetual fund never liquidates, plans for the average 21-year life rather than the individual 30-year tail, and passes mortality credits to surviving members rather than to annuity providers.

Independent confirmation comes from LCP’s 80-year historical analysis (April 2026), which found CDC outperformed individual DC with annuity purchase in every single economic period tested. LCP’s October 2025 report confirms CDC delivers up to 50-60% more income than DC with annuity purchase. The FCA’s Financial Lives Survey 2024 establishes that 75% of DC pension holders aged 45 and over have no clear plan for how to access their savings, and only 9% received regulated financial advice on pensions in the past year. For the c.90% who are unadvised — for whom sophisticated drawdown strategies are not a realistic option — the 50-60% advantage is the relevant benchmark, not the 15-25% LCP calculates for managed drawdown.

“The policy question is not whether CDC marginally outperforms sophisticated drawdown used by a minority. It is whether individual DC can reliably deliver adequate retirement incomes for the c.90% of members who receive no financial advice. The evidence, confirmed by IFS data, LCP research and 30 years of international experience, is that it cannot.”

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1. The Adequacy Crisis: The Numbers Behind the Problem

The UK pension system has two distinct problems. The first is the accumulation problem: members do not accumulate sufficient pot sizes by retirement. The second is the decumulation problem: even the pots that are accumulated generate insufficient income because the individual payout mechanism is structurally inefficient. Policy to date has addressed the first problem partially and the second problem barely at all.

1.1  How Many People Are Actually Affected?

The IFS ‘Individuals’ Challenges Managing Pensions Through Retirement’ (May 2025) provides the most authoritative current projections of DC wealth at retirement by birth cohort. These projections use DWP’s Wealth and Assets Survey and model realistic contribution histories including career gaps, part-time work and delayed starts.

The IFS projects median DC wealth at retirement among those with some DC wealth as follows: birth cohort 1960-64 (currently age 62-66): GBP74,000; birth cohort 1970-74 (currently age 52-56): GBP102,000; birth cohort 1975-79 (currently age 47-51): GBP131,000. These are medians — half of those with DC wealth have less. The bottom 25% have approximately GBP45,000-65,000. Many workers have no DC wealth at all: DWP estimates 14.6 million working-age Britons are currently under saving for retirement.

The chart makes three points that are difficult to dispute. First, under individual DC, the majority of members in every cohort fall below the PLSA minimum standard of GBP14,400 — not because they failed to save, but because even the median pot is insufficient when converted at a 3.5% safe withdrawal rate. Second, the improvement from DC to CDC is not marginal: the proportion below the minimum roughly halves, and the proportion above the moderate standard roughly triples or more. Third, the improvement requires no additional contributions — it comes entirely from the structural redesign of how the accumulated pot is converted into retirement income.

1.2  Why the Pots Are Smaller Than Theory Suggests

The IFS real-world median of GBP74,000-131,000 is lower than many theoretical projections — and for good reason. This is a description of reality, not a modelling error. The IFS figures reflect actual experience: career breaks for caring responsibilities, periods of self-employment excluded from auto-enrolment, years below the GBP10,000 annual earnings threshold, opt-outs and job changes with contribution gaps, and the fact that auto-enrolment only became universal in 2012. Workers now aged 55 have had at most 14 years of auto-enrolment — not 33.

The gender dimension compounds the adequacy problem further. DWP’s 2025 gender pensions gap analysis shows women aged 55-59 have average DC wealth of GBP81,000 versus GBP156,000 for men — a gap of 48%. The drivers are well-established: the gender pay gap of 6.9% (ONS 2025), career breaks for childcare taken disproportionately by women, and higher rates of part-time work.

“The median DC wealth at retirement for those born 1960-64 is projected at GBP74,000. At a 3.5% safe withdrawal rate plus state pension this delivers GBP14,563 per year — GBP163 above the PLSA minimum standard. For women it is less. This is not a near miss. This is a structural failure dressed up as an acceptable outcome.”

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2. Why the Current Policy Response Is Insufficient

The pension policy debate in 2026 is dominated by two responses to the adequacy problem: the Mansion House Accord’s push for private markets access during accumulation, and the development of guided retirement and flex-and-fix decumulation products. Both are genuine improvements. Neither cures he structural deficit for the majority.

2.1  The Mansion House Accord: Necessary but Not Sufficient

The Mansion House Accord of April 2026, committing seventeen major DC providers to 10% private markets allocations by 2030, reflects a genuine recognition that the accumulation phase is delivering insufficient returns. The direction is right. But the commitment addresses only the accumulation drag — one of the two structural problems. Even with improved private markets returns, a member who retires at 67 still faces the individual decumulation problem: they must calibrate their withdrawals to survive 30 years of individual longevity uncertainty, limiting themselves to a 3.5% safe withdrawal rate. The longevity pooling deficit remains entirely unaddressed by the Accord.

The Long-Term Asset Fund, the primary vehicle for private markets access currently utilised by a number of mastertrusts, introduces its own structural drag. LTAF designs typically require significant liquidity buffers to manage redemption risk — those buffer assets earn cash-equivalent returns of approximately 4-5% rather than the 8-12% targeted from private markets. Add the fee layer — LTAF management charges of 0.5-1.0% per annum on top of underlying asset manager fees — and the contribution to improved outcomes is materially less than the headline 10% allocation implies.

2.2  Decumulation Flexibility: Helpful for the Minority

The pension freedoms introduced in 2015 and the subsequent development of guided retirement pathways, flex-and-fix products and managed drawdown represent genuine innovations in decumulation design. These products serve real member needs — particularly for the minority with substantial accumulated savings who benefit from flexibility to manage tax-efficient withdrawal sequences and plan estate management.

The FCA’s Financial Lives Survey 2024 provides an enlightening insight into how large this minority is. According to this survey, only 9% of adults received regulated financial advice on pensions, savings or retirement planning in the preceding year. Among DC pension holders aged 45 and over, 75% have no clear plan for how to access their savings. The IFS (May 2025) found that six in ten DC pots accessed for the first time were accessed by people who had used neither regulated advice nor Pension Wise guidance.

The IFS data confirms the behavioural reality: 53% of pensions accessed for the first time in 2023-24 were fully cashed out. A further 32% were used to buy a drawdown product. Only 9% purchased annuities. The full cash-out rate is highest for smaller pots and declines with pot size. Most people with small pots take the money, pay the tax and spend it. Sophisticated flex-and-fix products do not reach them because they have neither the pot size nor the financial literacy to make them relevant.

“Decumulation flexibility is a genuine improvement for the c.10% who receive regulated advice and have sufficient accumulated wealth to make personalisation valuable. For the c.90% who do not, it is an irrelevance. The system cannot be designed for the minority and then claim to be addressing the adequacy problem of the majority.”

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3. The CDC Structural Solution: Three Parameters, Two Advantages

All pension provision reduces to three parameters: how much is contributed, what return is earned on those contributions, and how efficiently the accumulated pot is converted into retirement income. CDC improves the second and third parameters substantially while leaving the first unchanged. The structural advantages compound.

3.1  Methodology and Return Assumptions

In order to compare CDC to DC, it is important to examine accumulation and decumulation under both and compare outcomes. The quantitative analysis uses the ONS ASHE 2024 median full-time salary of GBP37,430 and the DWP 2024/25 auto-enrolment minimum of 8% total contribution. Two versions are presented: Version 1 uses Fisher-adjusted real returns at 2.5% inflation with 1% real salary growth, all figures in 2026 pounds; Version 2 uses nominal returns with 3% salary growth and qualifying earnings thresholds growing at 1.5% per annum reflecting fiscal drag. Return assumptions are from Dimson, Marsh and Staunton’s Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2024 — 124 years of UK and global data.

3.2  The Accumulation Advantage: Removing the Handbrake

Individual DC imposes a lifecycle glidepath that suppresses returns at the worst possible time — when the pot is largest and compounding has its greatest impact. From age 22 to 45, a high-equity growth allocation delivers approximately 8.86% per annum nominal. From 45 to 55, de-risking reduces this to 7.31%. From 55 to 67, capital preservation dominates at 5.63%. The rationale is individually rational: no member can afford a large equity drawdown near retirement with no time to recover. The cost — 3.23% per annum foregone in the final twelve years on the largest accumulated balance — is large.

CDC does not need to apply this handbrake. As a perpetual collective fund, no individual member’s retirement date triggers a liquidation. The fund continues to earn its growth allocation for all members — whether aged 25 or 75 — because the natural cash flows of contributions from younger members fund pension payments to older ones without requiring asset sales. LCP’s April 2026 historical analysis confirms this as the primary structural driver of CDC outperformance across all eight decades tested.

Chart 2 — The Lifecycle Handbrake. DC de-risking forces the portfolio return from 8.86% to 5.63% over the final 12 years. CDC holds its growth allocation throughout. LCP’s 80-year analysis confirms sustained growth exposure as the primary structural driver of CDC outperformance.

3.3  The Decumulation Advantage: A higher payout ratio supported by two  Distinct Mechanisms

The dominant structural advantage of CDC vs DC which accounts for  roughly four-fifths of the total income gap in retirement under CDC and DC is the payout rate improvement from pooling longevity risk. In plain English, members get more annual income in retirement from the same set of assets at the beginning of decumulation under CDC than under DC. In pensions parlance, the payout ratio or withdrawal ratio under CDC is higher than under DC. This higher payout ratio is supported by two distinct mechanisms that must be understood separately because they are independent in origin and partially complementary in effect. As we will explain, under DC decumulation is usually taking place at a withdrawal rate of 3.5% whereas under CDC the withdrawal rate can be significantly higher at 9% or even higher. This makes a massive difference in the annual amount a member can expect to receive from DC and from CDC, in favour of the CDC option.

Mechanism A — The return/payout spread: the growing notional pot

CDC is a perpetual fund. It earns its full portfolio return throughout decumulation — including for members who have retired — because no individual retirement event forces the fund to sell assets and reinvest conservatively. Like a commercial aircraft judged not at take-off but at cruising altitude, the CDC fund’s structural efficiency is realised when it reaches sufficient scale and maturity. A young or small CDC scheme may earn 6% on assets at take-off; a large mature scheme of the Canadian type operates at 7-8% at cruising altitude.

This perpetual growth return means that if the fund earns more than its payout rate, the notional entitlement of every member grows during retirement. A scheme earning 7% and paying out at, say, 6% is building reserves that can support benefit increases, absorb adverse years, and potentially fund a partial death benefit to beneficiaries — discussed further below.

Mechanism B — The mortality credit: the longevity pooling dividend

Separately and independently, when a CDC member dies, their future income entitlement does not pass to beneficiaries under standard CDC design. It remains in the collective fund and is redistributed to surviving members as a mortality credit. At a conservative weighted average of 2.0% per annum across the retirement period (rising from 1.2% at age 67 to over 5% at age 85), this adds approximately 2 percentage points to the effective return for survivors. The mortality credit in an individual annuity performs a similar function but is captured partly by the insurer as profit margin rather than flowing directly to surviving policyholders.

The gap in withdrawal rate under CDC and DC

Both the 3.5% safe withdrawal rate for individual DC and the 9.23% collective payout rate for CDC are derived from the same formula:

Payout rate  =  r / (1 – (1 + r)^-n)

where r is the annual investment return and n is the planning horizon in years. The two rates differ because the inputs differ — and understanding exactly how they differ is the structural heart of the CDC argument.

For individual DC: r = 3.0% (the investment return on a conservative bonds-heavy drawdown portfolio — the member must de-risk because they face individual sequence-of-returns risk; if markets fall 30% at age 70 there is no collective to absorb the shock) and n = 30 years (planning to age 97 — the individual must plan for the tail of the longevity distribution, not the average, because they cannot know when they will die).

Substituting: 0.03 / (1 – (1.03)^-30) = 0.03 / (1 – 0.4120) = 0.03 / 0.5880 = 5.10%. This is the mathematical maximum — the rate that exactly exhausts the pot in 30 years at 3% return. Financial planners conventionally use 3.5% rather than 5.10% because: (i) the 3% return may not be achieved if markets disappoint; (ii) a member who exhausts their pot at exactly age 97 has no buffer. The 3.5% rate leaves a residual pot as longevity insurance. It is the industry standard for a rational reason.

For CDC at cruising altitude: r = 7.0% (the perpetual growth portfolio return of a large mature CDC scheme — no individual liquidation event, no sequence-of-returns risk at the individual level, because the collective absorbs market volatility across thousands of members) and n = 21 years (the average remaining life expectancy at age 67 per ONS National Life Tables 2020-22 — the CDC scheme plans for the average because it pools across thousands of members and knows with statistical confidence the average outcome).

Substituting: 0.07 / (1 – (1.07)^-21) = 0.07 / (1 – 0.2415) = 0.07 / 0.7585 = 9.23%. The formula is identical. The parameters differ because the collective eliminates individual sequence-of-returns risk (allowing r = 7% instead of 3%) and plans for the average rather than the tail (allowing n = 21 instead of 30). Those two differences account for the entire gap between 3.5% and 9.23%.

As the table below demonstrates, decumulation via annuities can improve the payout ratio from 3.5% to ~5.75% but an even better improvement is possible with CDC. And in order to assess the CDC option in a fair manner, it is important to recognize that the annual investment return expectations of a CDC scheme will be lower at the beginning of such a scheme than after it has matured. The assumption in the table is that at take-off CDC investment returns may be around 6%, when approaching maturity around 7% and optimally around 8%. On top of the higher payout rate under CDC justified by the higher anticipated investment returns, CDC members benefit also from the mortality credit which adds an extra 2% to the payout rate if all the mortality credit is used for the benefit of the surviving members of a CDC scheme.

Table 4 — Payout rates with full formula derivation. Formula: r/(1-(1+r)^-n). DC uses r=3.0% (conservative bonds-heavy drawdown) and n=30yr (individual longevity tail). CDC uses r=7.0% (perpetual growth portfolio) and n=21yr (ONS collective average life). Formula verified: DC mathematical max = 5.10%; DC conventional = 3.50%; CDC cruising = 9.23%.

“The same formula — r/(1-(1+r)^-n) — applied to different parameters converts a 3.50% individual withdrawal rate into a 9.23% collective payout rate. Individual DC uses a 3% return and plans for 30 years. CDC uses a 7% return and plans for 21 years. Those two differences are the structural heart of the CDC argument.”

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 3.4.CDC Design choices  – The inheritance question, mortality credits and intergenerational fairness: a connected set of issues

Conventional wisdom holds that under DC, surviving family members can inherit residuals from a deceased member’s DC pot but inheritance is blind spot in CDC. Similarly, intergenerational fairness is not an issue for DC but is flagged as a genuine challenge for CDC as it relates to mortality credit and longevity risk pooling. These three topics are connected and must be addressed together honestly, because design choices in one affect the others.In truth, as we will see, though inheritance and intergenerational fairness do present challenges, mortality credit and absence of de-risking hand-brake afford CDC more funds and therefore genuine design choices in architecture.

On inheritance: the conventional view holds that CDC members sacrifice inheritance rights for higher income. Mechanism A complicates this. If the fund earns 7-8% and pays out at a lower rate, the notional entitlement of surviving members is growing. A well-designed scheme can offer a partial death benefit funded from the return/payout surplus of Mechanism A. However — and this is the critical design point — a death benefit and a mortality credit cannot both be paid in full from the same member’s death. When a member dies and the scheme pays a death benefit, that member’s entitlement is extinguished. The full entitlement is no longer available as a mortality credit for survivors. A hybrid design — paying, say, 50% as a death benefit and retaining 50% as a mortality credit — is feasible and does not undermine the scheme’s sustainability, but it reduces both benefits proportionately. The trade-off is explicit, not structural.

On intergenerational fairness: CDC schemes smooth investment returns across cohorts over time. A cohort retiring into a bull market may receive lower pensions than their individual DC equivalents would have provided, because their returns are shared with future retirees via the scheme’s solidarity reserve. Conversely, a cohort retiring in a downturn may receive higher pensions, supported by reserves built in better years. This smoothing is the source of the intergenerational risk-sharing benefit that LCP identifies as a primary structural advantage — but it also creates intergenerational tensions when the smoothing mechanism fails or is perceived as unfair. A cohort that accumulated during poor markets and retires during a recovery may feel they are subsidising a later cohort whose entire journey was in a bull market. The Dutch experience shows this tension is real and manageable, but it requires transparent actuarial governance, clear communication of the smoothing rules, and a solidarity reserve of sufficient size. The size of the solidarity reserve — typically 5-30% of fund assets in Dutch practice — is itself an intergenerational fairness choice: a larger reserve provides more protection to the older cohort at the cost of lower expected returns for the younger cohort.

These three issues — inheritance, mortality credits and intergenerational fairness — are all expressions of the same underlying principle: in a collective scheme, individual and intergenerational transfers are the mechanism by which the structural advantage is created and distributed. The design question is not whether these transfers occur, but whether they are transparent, fair and governed in the interests of members as a whole.

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4. Whole-of-Life CDC The Arithmetic in Full: Three CDC Scenarios

Examining Whole-of-Life CDC vs DC requires a proper analytical modelling of journeys and outcomes in terms of accumulation during a working life and decumulation in retirement.

The following results span both DC and CDC outcomes for the median earner on GBP37,430 contributing 8% over 45 years. Three CDC scenarios are presented reflecting the natural journey of a scheme from launch to maturity: take-off (6%), cruising (7%) and optimal (8%). The DC comparison uses the conventional 3.5% safe withdrawal rate throughout.

Chart 3 — Pot Accumulation, Age 22-67. Six portfolio strategies from 100% gilts to the optimised portfolio. The DC lifecycle curve (dashed) diverges downward from age 45 as the handbrake applies.

4.1  Sensitivity Analysis: The Advantage Is Structural, Not Assumption-Driven

The CDC/DC income ratio is stable across investment return scenarios because roughly four-fifths of the advantage flows from longevity pooling — which depends on the actuarial tables, not on investment returns. Even under stressed investment assumptions with CDC at take-off altitude, CDC delivers approximately 3.0x individual DC income.

4.2  Addressing the Premature Balanced Portfolio Concern

A legitimate objection: a young CDC saver immediately participates in a collective portfolio serving all age cohorts simultaneously. This 60/40-ish allocation may be less growth-oriented than the 100% equity allocation individual DC theoretically allows for young savers. The objection is taken seriously — it is the reason the conservative scenario uses a 60/40 CDC allocation with no private markets. Even under this most pessimistic assumption, CDC delivers approximately 3.04x annual DC income at cruising altitude. The 60/40 constraint reduces the accumulation advantage but leaves the longevity pooling dividend entirely intact. No accumulation assumption closes a payout rate gap of 9.23% versus 3.5%.

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5. The Cohort Challenge: CDC at Different Ages and Pot Sizes

The theoretical 45-year analysis establishes the structural case. The more urgent policy question is what CDC means for cohorts already in the system — workers aged 45-67 in the de-risking phase, with pots accumulated under individual DC and limited years remaining.

5.1  The Counterintuitive Finding: CDC Helps Most Where DC Has Already Failed Most

The CDC/DC income ratio is highest for the oldest cohort currently trapped in capital preservation, not for new entrants. A 55-year-old fully in Phase 3 at 5.63% benefits from switching to CDC at take-off (6%) in their first year. A 22-year-old still has 23 years in DC’s Phase 1 at 8.86%, which temporarily beats CDC cruising at 7% during the growth phase. Even so, the new entrant still achieves 2.33x DC income.

 

 

 

 

5.2  The Real-World Pot

The model uses a theoretical median earner with continuous contributions — pot of GBP280,304 at age 55. The IFS real-world data shows the actual median DC pot for those approaching retirement is GBP74,000-131,000. When the cohort analysis is run at the IFS real-world median of GBP102,000 for a 55-year-old switching to CDC with only 12 years remaining:

• DC outcome: pot grows from GBP102,000 at 5.63% for 12 years, with annual contributions of GBP3,522 (real) added each year = GBP254,014 at age 67, delivering GBP8,890 per year at 3.5% SWR — below the PLSA minimum standard. Derivation: GBP102,000 x (1.0563)^12 + GBP3,522 x ((1.0563)^12 -1)/0.0563 = GBP254,014.
• CDC outcome: same pot and contributions grow at 6% (take-off) = GBP263,695 at age 67, delivering GBP22,415 per year at 8.50% payout — above the PLSA minimum standard. Derivation: GBP102,000 x (1.06)^12 + GBP3,522 x ((1.06)^12 -1)/0.06 = GBP263,695.
• Ratio: 2.52x. CDC moves the outcome from below minimum to above minimum with only 12 years remaining, at a real-world pot size, at take-off altitude.

“A 55-year-old with the IFS median real-world pot of GBP102,000, switching to CDC with 12 years remaining, moves from below the PLSA minimum standard to above it. No additional contribution is required.”

 

 

5.3  What This Means for Policy: The Mastertrust Transition Challenge and Its Limitations

The cohort analysis establishes that the mastertrusts’ concern about CDC conversion for existing members is precisely inverted from the member’s perspective. From a commercial perspective, conversion is most disruptive for older cohorts already in de-risking. From a member perspective, these are exactly the people whose retirement outcomes would be most dramatically improved.

The priority for CDC rollout is to create CDC decumulation pathways for existing DC members approaching or entering retirement — the cohort where the adequacy gap is most severe. Decumulation-only CDC, or CDC sleeves within existing mastertrusts, would capture a significant portion of the structural advantage. However, an important and honest qualification must be stated explicitly.

A CDC sleeve containing only retired members — a decumulation-only pool — cannot deliver the same investment returns as a whole-of-life CDC scheme. In a whole-of-life scheme, contribution inflows from younger working members fund pension payments to older retired members, allowing the fund to maintain a growth-oriented perpetual allocation without needing to sell assets. The 7-8% cruising altitude return is achievable because the scheme has a perpetual inflow of new contributions to balance its pension outflows.

In a decumulation-only sleeve containing only retired members, there are no contribution inflows. Pension payments must be funded entirely from investment returns and asset sales, requiring progressively more conservative asset allocation as the membership ages and the fund contracts. Such a sleeve cannot reliably maintain the 7-8% cruising return. Its return may more realistically be 5-6%, reducing towards the take-off scenario rather than the cruising scenario.

The primary structural advantage of a decumulation-only CDC sleeve is therefore: (1) the mortality credit (Mechanism B) — members who die redistribute their entitlement to survivors, adding approximately 2% per year; and (2) the collective longevity planning horizon — the sleeve plans for 21 years on average rather than each individual planning for 30 years. The payout rate improvement is therefore from approximately 3.5% (individual SWR) to approximately 8.50% (collective at 6% return, 21yr) rather than to 9.23% (cruising). This is still a transformative improvement — 2.43x rather than 3.04x — and it is available immediately for the most inadequately provisioned cohorts. But it reinforces the case for whole-of-life CDC as the long-run policy destination, because only whole-of-life CDC captures both structural advantages in full.

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6. What Independent Research Shows — and What It Means for the Majority

LCP’s analysis of CDC versus DC provides authoritative independent confirmation of the structural case, but has been selectively interpreted in ways that understate CDC’s relevance for the majority of savers.

6.1  LCP’s Three-Paper Analysis

LCP published three relevant pieces of analysis. Their October 2025 report confirmed CDC delivers up to 50-60% more income than DC with annuity purchase, confirmed as valid on a like-for-like basis. Their April 2026 80-year historical analysis — using actual UK market returns across four distinct economic regimes — found CDC outperformed individual DC with annuity purchase in every single period tested. Their January 2026 blog introduced a 15-25% figure: the improvement over high-conviction DC income drawdown strategies.

LCP’s January 2026 blog conceded directly that the 50-60% comparison ‘is also valid as a like-for-like comparison.’ Their reason for preferring the 15-25% figure is that annuity-targeting DC is rare in practice. The three major DC providers they surveyed had none of their new clients selecting annuity strategies as defaults.

6.2  The c.90/c.10 Split: Which Comparison Is Relevant for the Majority?

The 15-25% figure assumes DC members are invested in high-conviction income drawdown strategies — actively managed drawdown with ongoing financial advice. The FCA’s Financial Lives Survey 2024 establishes definitively how many members have access to such strategies.

The picture is unambiguous. LCP’s 15-25% figure is relevant for at most c.10% of pension savers. For the remaining c.90% — and particularly for the 75% who approach retirement without a plan — the available choices are basic drawdown (often at conservative rates, without management), annuity purchase, or taking the pot as cash. For all three of these typical member behaviours, the CDC advantage is at least 50-60% and frequently much more. LCP’s own historical analysis confirms CDC outperforms in all of these scenarios across every period tested.

“LCP’s analysis establishes two reference points: a 50-60% advantage for those who buy annuities, and a 15-25% advantage for the sophisticated minority in managed drawdown. The FCA’s survey suggests c.90% of members receive no regulated pensions advice. The two facts together establish that the 50-60% advantage is the relevant benchmark for the overwhelming majority of auto-enrolled workers.”

 

6.3  The 80-Year Confirmation

LCP’s April 2026 analysis using 80 years of actual UK market returns — across expansion, stagflation, disinflation and recovery regimes — confirms three structural CDC features: sustained growth asset exposure, intergenerational risk sharing, and adjustable indexation. CDC outperformed individual DC with annuity purchase in every period, including the most challenging era of 1963-1983 characterised by high inflation and weak real returns. This 80-year confirmation addresses the ‘we don’t know how CDC will work’ objection directly.

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7. Can Improved DC Replicate CDC’s Structural Advantages?

It can be argued, with some justification, that so far this paper has compared CDC against a stylised DC, and that a well-designed DC pathway — with better defaults, collective decumulation, pooled drawdown, higher contributions — could replicate most of CDC’s benefits without governance complexity. The table below addresses this directly, comparing CDC with DC improved by different innovations across three key dimensions.

Any DC product that provides collective longevity pooling has become CDC in all but name. The moment you pool mortality risk across a defined membership, calibrate payouts to average life expectancy and maintain a perpetual growth-oriented fund, you have built a CDC scheme. The question is whether to do it properly — with full regulatory clarity and transparent actuarial governance — or implicitly through a patchwork of DC add-ons that preserve the commercial ecosystem benefiting from individual complexity.

“Any DC product that replicates CDC’s longevity pooling has become CDC in all but name. The system should do it properly — transparently, with professional governance, and for everyone — rather than implicitly, expensively, and only for the minority who can afford financial advice.”

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8. Genuine Challenges: What CDC Does Not Solve

A credible case for CDC requires honest acknowledgement of genuine challenges. These are real design and governance problems.

8.1  Benefit Variability

CDC provides a target income, not a guaranteed income. In years of poor investment performance or adverse mortality experience, pensions can be cut. The Royal Mail CDC scheme rules explicitly allow benefit adjustments both upward and downward. A member who retires expecting GBP25,000 per year may find that pension reduced in a bad year. This fundamentally differs from individual DC — where the pot is unambiguous personal property — and from DB, where the benefit is employer-guaranteed. The Dutch experience shows benefit variability is manageable — but it requires trustee competence and member communication of a quality that UK pension governance has not yet consistently demonstrated.

8.2  Intergenerational Fairness

CDC schemes smooth investment returns across cohorts, creating intergenerational transfers that require careful governance and transparent communication. Several distinct fairness challenges arise in practice.

First, the bull market cohort problem. A cohort retiring into a prolonged bull market may find their pensions are lower than their individual DC equivalents would have provided, because their exceptional returns are partially shared with future retirees through the solidarity reserve. From that cohort’s perspective, they subsidised others. From a system perspective, those funds create the reserves that support a future cohort retiring into a downturn. Whether this is fair depends on whether the smoothing rules are transparent, consistently applied and understood by members before they retire.

Second, the transition generation problem. The first generation to join a newly formed CDC scheme — particularly in a conversion from individual DC — faces a specific fairness challenge. Their accumulated individual DC pots are converted to CDC entitlements using a transfer value methodology. If the conversion assumptions are too generous to existing members, the younger cohort joining the new scheme pays a hidden price through diluted future entitlements. If the assumptions are too conservative, existing members receive less than their pots were worth. Getting the conversion methodology right — and being transparent about the assumptions used — is one of the most technically demanding aspects of CDC implementation. The Pension Schemes Act 2021 and associated regulations provide a framework, but trustee competence in this area is critical.

Third, the longevity assumption risk. If cohort life expectancy improves faster than the actuarial assumptions underlying the CDC scheme’s payout rates, the scheme will pay out more than it can sustain, requiring future benefit cuts. The current generation of retirees benefits at the expense of future members. Well-designed CDC schemes use conservative longevity assumptions and maintain solidarity reserves to buffer against this risk — but the Dutch experience in the 2010s showed that even well-established collective schemes can face painful benefit cuts when longevity assumptions require updating.

These intergenerational fairness challenges are manageable through good governance — explicit smoothing rules, transparent actuarial assumptions, appropriately sized solidarity reserves, and regular independent actuarial review. They are not arguments against CDC. They are the governance agenda that CDC trustees must own.

8.3  Governance Quality Is Critical

CDC success depends fundamentally on trustee competence, prudent actuarial management, honest benefit communication and resistance to political pressure to maintain unsustainable benefit levels. A poorly governed CDC scheme can cut benefits unexpectedly, creating exactly the member distrust that individual DC avoids by design. This is not an argument against CDC — it is an argument for the professionalisation of CDC governance, for PMI qualification standards, and for bringing the investment expertise that currently serves the DC advisory ecosystem inside the scheme for members’ benefit.

8.4  Portability and Career Mobility

CDC entitlements are scheme-specific. Transfer values from CDC are more complex to calculate than individual DC pot transfers. This requires regulatory clarity on transfer methodology. It is less acute for large default multi-employer CDC — the natural long-run destination of the policy — but represents a genuine transitional challenge.

8.5  The Inheritance Question — Partially Resolved, Design Dependent

As discussed in Section 3.3, the conventional inheritance objection is substantially softened by the return/payout spread mechanism (Mechanism A). A scheme earning more than its payout rate has a growing collective pot from which partial death benefits can be funded. However, any death benefit paid reduces the mortality credit available to survivors (Mechanism B), because the same entitlement cannot simultaneously fund both. A hybrid design paying partial death benefits from the return/payout surplus while retaining partial mortality credits for survivors is feasible and does not undermine scheme solvency. This is a design choice, not a structural impossibility — but it requires the scheme to be explicit about the trade-off.

“CDC’s genuine challenges — benefit variability, intergenerational fairness, governance complexity, portability — are real and require serious design attention. The 30-year Dutch experience demonstrates they are manageable at scale. They define the governance agenda for making CDC work. They are not the case against it.”

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9. What the Current System Costs Members Through Fragmentation and in pursuit of personalization

Beyond the income advantage, CDC eliminates four channels through which the current individual DC ecosystem imposes costs on members. Channels 1, 3 and 4 are direct costs – profit margins, fees, and charges — transferred to commercial providers. Channel 2 is an opportunity cost — foregone investment returns that accrue to no one but instead represent value destroyed by structural inefficiency. Both types of cost matter for members.

9.1  Channel 1 — The Annuity Intermediation Cost

When a DC member purchases an individual annuity, three elements of value are transferred from the member to the life insurer. Understanding precisely what the insurer earns — and what the member forgoes — requires examining actual reported data from listed providers.

Just Group plc, the UK’s largest specialist annuity provider, reported in its 2024 accounts a new business margin of 8.7% — described explicitly as

‘the difference between the investment return on the assets backing the annuity and the yield paid to the annuity holder, less expenses.’ (Source: MoneyWeek analysis of Just Group accounts, 2024.)

Just Group’s underlying operating profit reached GBP504 million in 2024, up 34% year on year, reflecting the structural profitability of the annuity market. Legal and General’s Institutional Retirement business — the UK’s largest pension risk transfer provider — reported an IFRS new business margin of 7.1% in 2024 on GBP10.7bn of global pension risk transfer, generating operating profit of GBP1,105 million. L&G’s retail annuity business generated Solvency II new business value add of GBP132 million on GBP2.1bn of retail annuity sales, a 6.3% margin. (Source: L&G Full Year Results 2024.)

The 6-9% new business margin range reported by these two providers represents the net present value of all future annual spreads between what the insurer earns on assets and what it pays in annuity income, expressed as a percentage of the initial premium. The annual investment spread underlying this margin is approximately 0.75-1.0% of assets — the insurer earns approximately 6.5% on a matched Solvency II portfolio while paying approximately 5.75% in annuity income. Over a 21-year average annuity life, the NPV of that 0.75-1.0% annual spread, discounted at approximately 6%, is approximately 8-11% of the initial premium. After expenses of approximately 1-1.5%, the net margin of 6-9% results.

In a CDC scheme, there is no insurer and therefore no profit margin. The investment return on the perpetual growth portfolio accrues entirely to the collective fund. The mortality credit — the CDC equivalent of the insurer’s longevity profit — flows to surviving members rather than to insurer shareholders. The administrative costs are substantially lower because there is no individual underwriting, no regulatory capital requirement under Solvency II, and no need for the reinsurance arrangements that insurers use to manage longevity tail risk. CDC is, in effect, the internalisation of the annuity function — performing the same economic service at cost rather than at profit.

On GBP75,000 pot, the gap between annuity payout (approximately 5.75%) and CDC payout at cruising with mortality credits (approximately 10.76%) represents GBP3,758 per year. Over a 21-year retirement that is GBP78,918 of additional lifetime income from the same pot. This is what the annuity providers are keeping as profit for providing “guaranteed” annuity. Under CDC this amount augments the member’s annual income and not the annuity providers’ annual profits.

9.2  Channel 2 — The Handbrake Return Penalty: An Opportunity Cost

The lifecycle de-risking penalty is not a direct transfer to a commercial provider — it is an opportunity cost: value destroyed by structural inefficiency rather than captured by anyone else. It is no less real for that. A member who forfeits GBP175,000 in lifetime pot growth due to the handbrake is not poorer because a provider is richer. They are poorer because the system forced them into lower-returning assets at the worst possible time.

The annual opportunity cost is calculated as follows. Approximately 7.7 million workers are in the de-risking age bracket of 45-67 with meaningful DC pots, estimated as 35% of 22 million active DC members (ONS age distribution data). The average DC pot across this age group is estimated at approximately GBP65,000 (DWP average pot all ages GBP32,700, skewed upward for the older cohort; consistent with IFS median for cohort 1970-74 of GBP102,000 at retirement with some years still to go). The weighted return penalty is approximately 2.39% per annum — Phase 2 penalty of 1.55% (8.86%-7.31%) applied to the age 45-55 group plus Phase 3 penalty of 3.23% (8.86%-5.63%) applied to the age 55-67 group, equally weighted.

System-wide annual opportunity cost: 7.7 million x GBP65,000 x 2.39% = approximately GBP12bn per annum. This is a central estimate with a defensible range of GBP7-18bn depending on average pot assumption. The lifetime opportunity cost per median earner over the full de-risking period is approximately GBP175,000 in nominal terms, derived from our accumulation model: the difference between the pot at 67 under the DC lifecycle (GBP437,030) and the pot at 67 if Phase 1 returns continued throughout (approximately GBP600,000+).

9.3  Channel 3 — The Advisory and Asset Management Fee Differential

The total cost of ownership of a typical UK DC mastertrust default is approximately 0.50-0.75% per annum. This figure is derived from the FCA’s investment platform market study and DWP’s analysis of DC mastertrust charges, which show: ongoing charge figure (OCF) of 0.15-0.30% for index funds to 0.40-0.60% for active funds; platform costs of 0.10-0.20%; transaction costs of 0.05-0.10%; and advisory/governance costs of 0.05-0.15%. The DWP charge cap of 0.75% on default arrangements sets the maximum, and most large mastertrusts operate in the 0.40-0.60% range total. (Source: DWP Charge Cap Review 2024; FCA Investment Platforms Market Study 2024.)

A large CDC scheme investing directly in the Canadian manner — CPP Investment Board at 0.10% total cost, Ontario Teachers at approximately 0.12% — operates at 0.10-0.15% total cost by eliminating the retail intermediation layer: no fund of funds structure, no third-party platform administration, no external active managers (replaced by internal direct investing teams), and no multi-vintage lifestyle fund management. On the total GBP700bn of DC trust-based assets (DWP Occupational Pension Scheme Survey 2023), the fee differential of approximately 0.45% per annum represents approximately GBP3.2bn per year. This is the cost of the architecture and complexity of the individual DC model — fees paid to external providers for a service that the CDC collective structure would provide more efficiently and at lower cost. For context: fees consume approximately 6 pence in every GBP1 of annual target investment return at 8%.

The distribution of who bears and who benefits from this fee differential is not uniform. The majority of DC members with small pots pay the same percentage fee as those with large pots — but the personalisation, investment selection and drawdown planning that those fees supposedly fund is accessed overwhelmingly by those at the top of the wealth distribution. The c.90% of members without financial advice receive little of the value that the 0.45% annual fee premium is meant to provide. The fees are system-wide; the benefits are concentrated. This is the structural subsidy of the financially engaged minority by the financially disengaged majority.

9.4  Channel 4 — The Administration Individualisation Cost

The UK DC system maintains 22 million separate individual pension accounts — each with its own contribution history, investment record, death benefit nomination, transfer history and drawdown account. CDC maintains a collective ledger of income entitlements. The per-member administration cost differential is quantified from PLSA’s annual DC administration cost survey (2024), which reports average per-member administration costs as follows: large mastertrusts (over 100,000 members): GBP20-35 per member per year; medium schemes (10,000-100,000 members): GBP80-150; small schemes (under 10,000): GBP200-400. Using GBP30 per member as the weighted average across the primarily large-mastertrust structure of the current market (most of the 22 million members are in large schemes), the CDC equivalent of approximately GBP12 per member per year (based on DB-equivalent administration costs reported by the Pensions Regulator’s scheme administration cost analysis 2023) gives a differential of GBP18 per member per year. On 22 million active members: 22 million x GBP18 = GBP396 million per annum.

This is the Henry Ford observation applied to pensions. Ford’s insight — that the primary goal is transportation, not colour — meant standardisation enabled scale which enabled affordability. The primary goal of the pension system is retirement income, not personalisation of the investment journey. The GBP396m per annum is the price of maintaining 22 million separate individual accounts when a collective ledger would deliver the same primary goal at lower cost. Like the colour of the car, the personalisation of the DC account is a feature that adds cost for all while delivering value primarily to those who actively choose and use it — the c.10% who engage meaningfully with their pension.

9.5 Total value gained via CDC in favor of members relative to DC

Combining the four elements of value examined above we can estimate the total value that is gained for the benefit of CDC members relative to the DC alternative. The profit margin of annuity providers is internalized into CDC. The opportunity cost of the hand-brake does not have to be incurred. Similarly, the fees to advisors and managers and the costs of underutilized, yet still imperfect personalization are much reduced or do not have to be incurred at all.

It is striking that at a time when the adequacy challenge is beginning to be understood as the biggest challenge of the pensions industry, the value transfer mechanisms under DC get very little airtime when CDC is discussed. Yet, the arithmetic above suggests that under CDC, every one of the 22 million of DC savers, could be better off by more than GBP 1,000 per annum.

“The current DC ecosystem does not impose these costs through wrongdoing. It does so through the structural complexity of individual provision — complexity that CDC at scale would eliminate. Channel 2 — the handbrake opportunity cost of GBP12bn per annum — is not even a transfer to anyone. It is value destroyed by forcing members into conservative assets at the moment their accumulated savings are at their largest and most productive. This is the structural failure in its starkest form.”

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10. Why DC Persists Despite Weak Outcomes for the Majority

10.1  DC Privatises Responsibility

Individual DC’s political genius is that it privatises responsibility for retirement outcomes. If a member arrives at retirement with an inadequate pot, the system assigns responsibility to individual choices: they did not save enough, chose the wrong investment, retired at the wrong time. There is no central point of accountability. CDC re-socialises some of that responsibility — the scheme’s actuaries and trustees take collective ownership of adequacy outcomes. This is precisely why CDC governance must be excellent, and also why CDC is politically harder to introduce than a structure that diffuses responsibility invisibly across 22 million individual journeys.

10.2  The Personalisation Narrative Serves Provider Interests

Running through the advocacy of the DC ecosystem is a common thread: that personalisation and customisation are inherently valuable, that pooling is inherently inferior, and that individual choice and flexibility are goods in themselves. Five categories of established commercial interest face material losses from CDC adoption at scale — annuity providers, investment consultants, asset managers, platform administrators and financial advisers. None requires bad faith to sustain resistance — the structural incentive is sufficient. But the personalisation narrative serves their interests at the expense of the majority who lack the financial sophistication to exercise meaningful choice and who bear the costs of that complexity without the capacity to navigate it.

“DC’s political genius is that it privatises responsibility. If outcomes are poor, the member is blamed. CDC re-socialises some responsibility — which is precisely why it delivers better outcomes and precisely why it is harder to introduce politically.”

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11. What the International Evidence Shows

The argument that CDC is untested rests on a selective reading of the evidence. The UK’s experience is new. The international experience is not.

11.1  The Netherlands: 30 Years of Collective Provision and a Historic 2023 Reform

The Netherlands operated CDC-style collective pension schemes — Pensioenfonds ABP (civil servants, over GBP500bn assets) and PFZW (healthcare, over GBP250bn) — for three decades, delivering pension replacement rates averaging approximately 70-80% of final salary — far exceeding UK DC replacement rates of 25-35% for median earners.

In 2023 the Netherlands enacted the most significant pension reform in its history: the Future of Pensions Act (Wet toekomst pensioenen, WTP), which entered into force on 1 July 2023. By 1 January 2028, all Dutch occupational pension schemes must transition to the new system. As of 1 January 2026, approximately 9.5 million pensioners with savings of approximately EUR1.8 trillion have begun the transition process.

It is important to understand what this reform is and what it is not. It is not a retreat from collective provision. It is not a move to individual DC in the UK sense. The WTP requires all occupational schemes to convert from defined benefit (where the employer guarantees a specific benefit) to a collective defined contribution structure — preserving the collective investment and longevity pooling while removing the employer balance sheet guarantee. The reform introduces two new CDC variants:

• The Solidarity Pension Arrangement (SPR): collective investments managed for all cohorts together, with returns allocated to individual pension pots according to age-based rules, and a mandatory solidarity reserve of up to 30% of fund assets to absorb investment shocks. Most Dutch sectors chose this variant — which surprised many observers, as it is the more complex and more collective option.
• The Flexible Pension Arrangement (FPR): more individualised, closer to the UK’s DC model, with age-cohort specific investment policies. Fewer sectors chose this variant.

In the new Dutch system, longevity risk is still pooled: when a member dies before retirement, their notional share of assets remains in the fund for survivors, precisely as in the CDC model this paper advocates. Contribution rates remain mandatory and high — 27% of pay in most cases (18% employer, 9% employee). The mandatory solidarity reserve of 5-30% of assets is the mechanism by which the collective absorbs adverse investment years and protects the oldest cohort. Some observers predict the CDC structure will deliver a 7% increase in retirement income payments compared to the previous DB system.

The Dutch reform is therefore the opposite of what its critics sometimes suggest. Rather than representing disillusionment with collective provision, it represents the evolution of collective provision to remove employer guarantee costs while preserving the structural pooling benefits. The UK CDC advocate should be encouraged, not worried, by the Dutch experience: a country with 30 years of collective pension experience chose, after years of deliberation, to remain collective rather than move to individual DC. That is a powerful endorsement of the collective principle.

The Netherlands precedent also demolishes the binary framing that has dominated UK pensions policy for thirty years — the assumption that defined benefit is unaffordable and individual DC is the inevitable alternative. That framing presents the UK’s shift from DB to individual DC in the 1990s and 2000s as historically necessary. The Dutch experience shows it was a choice, not an inevitability. When the Netherlands faced identical pressures — ageing demographics, low interest rates, employer resistance to balance sheet guarantees — it had access to the same individual DC model the UK adopted. After fifteen years of deliberation, with full knowledge of both options and the benefit of the world’s most sophisticated pension policy community, it chose collective DC over individual DC. EUR1.8 trillion and 9.5 million pensioners are the evidence that this choice was made with full awareness of the governance complexity, the benefit variability and the intergenerational tensions that collective provision entails. The UK pensions debate should be conducted in the light of that choice, not in ignorance of it.

11.2  Canada: The Cruising Altitude Benchmark

The Canadian pension funds — CPP Investment Board, Ontario Teachers, OMERS, HOOPP — represent the optimal altitude in this paper’s cruising altitude analogy. CPP Investment Board delivered approximately 10.8% annualised return over the decade to 2024, net of costs, at 0.10% total investment cost. Ontario Teachers delivered 9.6% annualised over 10 years for 336,000 members. These returns are the empirical validation of the 7-8% return assumption used in this paper’s base and optimistic scenarios. They are not theoretical projections — they are the track record of collective structures operating at institutional scale, investing directly in private markets without the retail intermediation layer.

The ‘we don’t know how CDC will work in the UK’ objection is therefore empirically weak. We know exactly how it works. The question is what governance standards and scale thresholds are required to realise those outcomes in the UK context — a governance and implementation question, not a structural one.

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12. The Policy Roadmap: What to Do Now

The structural case for CDC is clear. The international evidence is supportive. The adequacy crisis is urgent. The question is how to get from here to there — particularly for the cohorts already in inadequate DC who cannot wait.

12.1  The Immediate Priority: CDC Decumulation for Existing DC Members

The cohort analysis in Section 5 establishes that the most urgent intervention is CDC decumulation pathways for existing DC members approaching or at retirement. The 50-60% income advantage over annuity purchase, confirmed by LCP, is available immediately to these members without requiring wholesale scheme conversion. A CDC decumulation pool within an existing DC mastertrust captures the primary structural advantage — collective longevity planning — without disrupting the accumulation phase.

As clarified in Section 5.3, a decumulation-only CDC pool containing only retired members cannot earn the 7-8% cruising altitude return of a whole-of-life scheme, because there are no contribution inflows from younger members to fund pension payments. Its payout rate advantage — from approximately 3.5% (individual SWR) to approximately 8.50% (collective at 6% return, 21yr) — is real and significant, representing a 2.43x improvement in annual income for the median earner. But this reinforces the urgency of the second step.

12.2  The Medium Term: Multi-Employer Whole-of-Life CDC

The mastertrust consolidation agenda creates the natural vehicle for multi-employer whole-of-life CDC. A mastertrust operating at GBP50-100bn scale has the liquidity management capability, governance infrastructure and direct investing capacity to operate at or near cruising altitude. The Pension Schemes Act 2021 authorised this structure. What is needed is regulatory guidance on default CDC pathways, transfer value methodology, and benefit communication standards.

12.3  The Long-Run Destination: Default CDC for All

The long-run policy destination — and the one that addresses the adequacy problem at scale — is default CDC for all auto-enrolled members who do not actively opt for individual DC. The adequacy data makes the case: 37-46% of each cohort below the PLSA minimum standard under individual DC is not an acceptable outcome for a system that has achieved near-universal participation. Participation without adequacy is participation without purpose.

12.4  The Unsolved Problem: Contribution Rates

CDC is not a magic solution to inadequate contribution rates. A member contributing 8% of qualifying earnings from a starting salary of GBP37,430, with real-world career gaps, will arrive at retirement with a pot that even CDC’s superior payout mechanism cannot fully compensate for. The IFS projections show that even under CDC, significant proportions of each cohort fall short of the PLSA moderate standard. The contribution rate — the first of the three parameters — is beyond CDC’s structural remit. The Pensions Commission’s recommendation of 12-15% total contributions has never been implemented. CDC amplifies the value of every pound contributed; it does not substitute for contributions that were never made.

“Whole-of-life CDC should be the default for all auto-enrolled workers who do not actively choose otherwise. Decumulation CDC should be implemented immediately for existing DC members approaching retirement. The sooner it is done, the fewer cohorts are left stranded in a system that was never designed to deliver adequacy for the majority.”

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13. Conclusion — Designing for the majority whilst safeguarding choice for the minority

The structural case for CDC over individual DC rests on mechanisms as reliable as the actuarial tables on which they depend — confirmed by LCP’s 80-year historical analysis, validated by 30 years of Dutch experience and decades of Canadian institutional performance. CDC maintains its growth portfolio throughout the member’s lifetime because the perpetual collective fund faces no individual liquidation event. Individual DC is forced to de-risk when the pot is largest, and to calibrate withdrawals for the individual longevity tail rather than the collective average. These two structural features generate a material income advantage — approximately 3x DC income in the central scenario — that is stable across stressed, base and optimistic return assumptions because roughly four-fifths of it flows from longevity pooling rather than from investment returns.

The pot size distribution charts demonstrate the human consequences of this structural failure. For each retiring cohort, between 37% and 46% of members fall below the PLSA minimum retirement standard under individual DC, despite having participated in auto-enrolment and contributed at the minimum rate. Under CDC, that proportion falls to 13-24%. The improvement requires no additional contribution. It comes entirely from the structural redesign of how accumulated pots are converted into retirement income.

The industry debate about whether CDC outperforms DC by 50-60% or only 15-25% is a debate about which members and which comparison is relevant. LCP’s analysis is technically careful and has been engaged with honestly in this paper. But it must be read alongside the FCA’s own data: 75% of DC holders approaching retirement have no plan, c.90% receive no regulated advice. For them — the auto-enrolled median earner who trusts the system to deliver — the relevant comparison is CDC against basic drawdown or annuity purchase. The advantage there is 50-60% or more, confirmed by LCP’s own historical analysis.

The genuine challenges of CDC — benefit variability, intergenerational fairness, governance complexity, portability friction — are real and require serious design attention. The 30-year Dutch experience demonstrates they are manageable at scale. The 2023 Dutch pension reform — in which a country with 30 years of collective pension experience chose to remain collective rather than move to individual DC — is the most powerful endorsement available of the collective principle. The commercial ecosystem of resistance explains the slow pace of adoption far better than the merits of the arguments against CDC.

The central policy question is not whether DC can be improved for the minority. It is whether individual DC can reliably deliver adequate retirement incomes for the c.90% of members who receive no financial advice. The evidence is that it cannot. Whole-of-life CDC should be the default. Decumulation CDC should be implemented immediately for existing DC members approaching retirement. And the sooner it is done, the fewer cohorts are left stranded in a system that was never designed to deliver adequacy for the majority.

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About the Author

Christos Christou is a finance professional with 37 years of international experience spanning private equity, corporate restructuring, emerging markets investment and corporate governance. He is a PMI-qualified Professional Trustee and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a First Class Honours degree in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College London. His career has included senior roles at the EBRD, co-founding Avestis Capital and serving as Investment Director at the AIG Emerging Europe Infrastructure Fund. He is a Freeman of the City of London. This paper is the sixth in a series examining structural challenges affecting the UK defined contribution pension system.

 

 

Sources and Data

• IFS ‘Individuals’ Challenges Managing Pensions Through Retirement’, May 2025 — projected DC wealth at retirement by birth cohort; access patterns; advice usage.
• Dimson, Marsh & Staunton, Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2024, Credit Suisse / UBS Research Institute — 124-year asset class returns.
• ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) 2024 — median full-time earnings GBP37,430.
• ONS Population Estimates 2024 — birth cohort sizes approximately 3.5 million per 5-year cohort.
• DWP Occupational Pension Scheme Survey 2023 — total DC trust-based assets approximately GBP700bn; 22 million active members.
• DWP Workplace Pension Participation and Savings Trends 2009-2024 — 72% DC participation rate.
• DWP Analysis of Future Pension Incomes 2025 — 14.6 million (43%) working-age adults undersaving.
• DWP auto-enrolment qualifying earnings thresholds 2024/25 — lower GBP6,240, upper GBP50,270.
• DWP Gender Pensions Gap in Private Pensions 2025 — women aged 55-59: GBP81,000 vs men GBP156,000.
• DWP Charge Cap Review 2024 — DC default fund charges; mastertrust cost data.
• FCA Financial Lives Survey 2024 — 75% of DC holders 45+ have no retirement plan; 9% received regulated pensions advice.
• FCA Retirement Income Market Data 2023/24 — 9% annuity purchase; 53% full cash-out; 32% drawdown.
• FCA Investment Platforms Market Study 2024 — platform and fund charge data.
• LCP ‘The Future of Pensions’, October 2025 — CDC delivers up to 50-60% more income than DC with annuity purchase.
• LCP ‘Are you comparing CDC and DC pension offerings fairly?’, January 2026 — 15-25% vs 50-60% context.
• LCP ‘CDC vs DC vs DB: What 80 years of data tells us’, April 2026 — CDC outperforms in all periods.
• Just Group plc Annual Report and Accounts 2024 — 8.7% new business margin on annuity business; GBP504m underlying operating profit.
• Legal & General Group Full Year Results 2024 — Institutional Retirement IFRS NB margin 7.1%; operating profit GBP1,105m; retail annuity SII value add GBP132m on GBP2.1bn.
• BVCA Performance Measurement Survey 2024 | EDHECInfra Quarterly Index 2024 | Preqin Global Private Debt Report 2024 | Barclays Equity Gilt Study 2024.
• ONS National Life Tables 2020-22 cohort projections — average remaining life expectancy at age 67: 21 years.
• PLSA Retirement Living Standards 2024 — minimum GBP14,400, moderate GBP31,300, comfortable GBP43,100 (single person).
• PLSA DC Administration Cost Survey 2024 — GBP20-35 per member large mastertrusts, GBP80-150 medium, GBP200-400 small.
• The Pensions Regulator DB administration cost analysis 2023 — DB-equivalent per-member costs approximately GBP12.
• Fisher, I. (1930), The Theory of Interest — real return = (1+nominal)/(1+inflation)-1.
• Pension Schemes Act 2021 — CDC legal framework for the UK.
• Dutch Future of Pensions Act (Wet toekomst pensioenen, WTP), July 2023 — Netherlands pension reform to collective DC.
• De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) guidance on WTP implementation 2023-2026.
• Retirement Income Journal ‘Going Dutch on Pensions’, January 2026 — Dutch CDC reform implementation and 7% income improvement prediction.
• CPP Investment Board Annual Report 2024 — 10.8% annualised 10-year return net of costs.
• Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Annual Report 2024 — 9.6% annualised 10-year return.
• DWP / PLSA / Mansion House Accord, April 2026 — DC provider private markets commitments.

 

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Appendix — Full Methodology Tables

Appendix A: Chart 1 Methodology — Distribution of People by Retirement Income Band

Chart 1 is constructed as follows. The IFS projected DC wealth at retirement figures used in Chart 1 represent the expected pot size at State Pension Age (approximately age 67) for each birth cohort — not the current pot size today. These projections incorporate all remaining years of accumulation from the present to retirement, including future contributions, investment returns and the realistic career gaps and interruptions that characterise actual working lives.

For each birth cohort, the distribution of these projected pot sizes at retirement is modelled as a lognormal distribution fitted to three data points from IFS ‘Individuals Challenges Managing Pensions Through Retirement’ (May 2025): the 25th percentile, median (50th percentile) and 75th percentile of projected DC wealth at retirement.

The lognormal is the standard model for wealth distributions bounded below at zero and positively skewed — the key parameters are the mean and standard deviation of the log-transformed distribution, which are solved algebraically from the IFS percentile data.

The cohort population is estimated as: ONS population estimates of approximately 3.5 million people per five-year birth cohort, multiplied by the 72% DC participation rate from DWP workplace pension statistics 2024 = approximately 2.52 million per cohort.

Annual retirement income is calculated as follows. Under individual DC: annual income = pot x 3.5% + state pension GBP11,973. Under CDC: annual income = pot x 9.23% + state pension GBP11,973. The pot threshold corresponding to each PLSA income standard is: pot threshold = (PLSA standard – state pension) / payout rate. For example, the DC pot threshold for PLSA minimum GBP14,400 is (14,400 – 11,973) / 0.035 = GBP69,343. The CDC pot threshold for the same standard is (14,400 – 11,973) / 0.0923 = GBP26,295. The proportion of the cohort below each threshold is read from the lognormal cumulative distribution function (CDF), and the number of people is that proportion multiplied by the cohort population.

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