What do I pay?
You have to pay 3% of your pensionable salary. Sky will double what you pay, so a total of 9% of your pensionable salary is paid to your individual account.
Can I pay more?
Yes. By making extra payments, you increase your regular payments to the Plan, and Sky will also make extra payments.
Sky will double your regular payments and will match your extra payments until the payments going in equal 15% of your pensionable salary.
This has been summarised in the table below:
| Regular payments (the minimum that has, by law, to be paid into your individual account under auto-enrolment) |
|
Extra payments – if you want to pay more to boost your individual account |
| You pay |
Sky pay |
|
You can pay |
Sky will then pay |
| 3% of your pensionable salary |
6% of your pensionable salary |
PLUS |
1% of your pensionable salary |
1% of your pensionable salary |
PLUS
|
2% of your pensionable salary |
2% of your pensionable salary |
| PLUS |
3% of your pensionable salary |
3% of your pensionable salary |
| Total payments into your individual account - 9% of your pensionable salary |
PLUS |
Total extra payments into your individual account - 6% of your pensionable salary |
| Total payments into your individual account – 15% of your pensionable salary |
Please Note:
If you joined the Sky Pension Plan before July 2011 and were contributing 4% of your pensionable salary, Sky will pay 8%. If you elect to pay an additional 2% (to pay 6%), Sky will contribute an additional 1%, making a combined total contribution of 15% of your salary.
The Plan is set up using Salary Sacrifice as a default. This means that you give up (or ‘sacrifice’) some of your salary equal to what would otherwise be your member contribution to the Plan. The amount of salary you sacrifice is then paid by Sky as an additional employer contribution (i.e. on top of Sky’s regular employer contribution), so the contribution amount being paid to your account in the Plan is the same. Although you don’t generally pay income tax on your member contributions, you do pay National Insurance on them. However, neither you nor Sky pay National Insurance on Sky’s contributions to your account in the Plan. As such, by participating in Salary Sacrifice, you reduce the National Insurance you pay, so your take home pay goes up. Participating in Salary Sacrifice will not be possible where, as a result of your sacrifice, your pay reduces to below the National Minimum Wage. Where you participate in Salary Sacrifice, your pre-sacrifice salary (your ‘Reference Salary’) would be used for the purposes of your insured death in service benefits and other purposes (e.g. mortgage applications).
For more details go to Sky Benefits
Can I pay even more?
If you want to boost your individual account further, you can choose to make additional voluntary contributions (AVCs). You can pay as much as you like as AVCs (but tax relief on overall contributions is limited to the Annual Allowance – see below). However, Sky will not match your AVCs above the extra payment shown in the table above. So, before deciding to make regular AVCs, make sure you are already paying the maximum as extra payments to benefit from Sky’s extra payments.
The maximum total contributions that can be paid into your individual account tax efficiently in any one tax year is set by the Government, and is known as the Annual Allowance. For most people, this limit is the standard Annual Allowance which is now set at £60,000 for 2023/2024 (having been increased from £40,000 in 2022/2023). However, if you have very high taxable earnings in a tax year, the standard Annual Allowance applicable to you for that tax year reduces proportionately, now down to a minimum of £10,000; this is called the Tapered Annual Allowance. Likewise, if you have flexibly accessed defined contribution retirement savings from any registered pension scheme, your Annual Allowance automatically reduces to £10,000; this is called the Money Purchase Annual Allowance and you would be notified if this applies to you.
If your total contributions to your individual account in the Plan (including those made by Sky) together with any other contributions paid by (or in respect of) you to other registered pension schemes in any tax year exceeds your Annual Allowance, the excess may be subject to a tax charge. Any excess contributions in this context can be offset by any unused Annual Allowance you have from the previous three tax years; this is called ‘carry forward’ (though does not apply if you are subject to the Money Purchase Annual Allowance referred to above).
You can find out more about the Annual Allowance at www.gov.uk/tax-on-your-private-pension/annual-allowance.