State Pension calculator
The new State Pension is a flat weekly rate scaled by one number: how many qualifying years sit on your National Insurance record. This page sets out the rule the Pensions Act 2014 makes and works it through across a range of counts. It applies to a record that started after April 2016 and does not model an older one.
The rule
The Pensions Act 2014 sets one flat rate and scales it by a count. 35 qualifying years pays the full £241.30 a week. Fewer than 10 pays nothing. Between the two, the amount is that proportion of the full rate, which works out at about £6.89 a week for each qualifying year.
Section 3(2) states the rule as a proportion of the full rate; the denominator is the 35 years section 2(2)(b) requires for that rate. The formula itself is published on legislation.gov.uk as an image with no text alternative, so the wording above is taken from the two provisions rather than from the formula.
What each qualifying-year count produces
| Qualifying years | A week | Share of the full rate |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | £68.94 | 10/35 |
| 15 | £103.41 | 15/35 |
| 20 | £137.89 | 20/35 |
| 25 | £172.36 | 25/35 |
| 30 | £206.83 | 30/35 |
| 34 | £234.41 | 34/35 |
| 35 or more | £241.30 | 35/35 |
With fewer than 10 qualifying years there is no new State Pension at all, not a smaller one. The United Kingdom guarantees no minimum State Pension: below the threshold nothing is payable, and above it the amount is a straight proportion of the full rate with no floor under it.
What this arithmetic does not model
It works for a National Insurance record that started after April 2016. Most people’s does not. If you were contributing before then, your figure is worked out from a starting amount that compares the old and new rules, and three things can move it away from a plain fraction of the full rate:
- a starting amount carried over from your pre-2016 record;
- a protected payment paid on top of the full rate, if the old rules would have given you more;
- a contracted-out deduction, which is why someone contracted out before 2016 usually needs more than 35 qualifying years for the full rate.
None of those is modelled here, and no general rule for how many extra years a contracted-out record needs was located: it depends on that person’s own record. Your State Pension forecast is the figure that accounts for all three.
How the rate moves each year
The rate is reviewed every year and increased by order. The statutory rule is an earnings-linked minimum: the Secretary of State must lay an order increasing it by a percentage not less than the growth in the general level of earnings. That is the whole of the duty in section 150A.
The triple lock is a policy commitment, not the statutory formula. There is no consumer-prices element and no 2.5% element anywhere in the section. For 2026/27 the order raised the full rate from £230.25 to £241.30 a week.