Nest Retirement Date Fund

We designed our flagship Nest Retirement Date Funds to work for you, no matter your age or income. It’s one of the reasons over 99% of our members stay in these award-winning funds – a total of around 10 million people. As flexible funds that adapt to your changing needs over the years, they work hard to protect and grow your savings throughout your life.

How does it work?

Pension funds have one purpose – to help you put money aside for when you’re no longer working and earning. They do this by investing your savings in things like company shares, loans, property and more, so that your money grows over time. 

Our investment approach takes this one step further. You care about where your pounds go – and so do we. That’s why we work hard to bring you better profits by also considering how people and the planet are treated. 

It’s more than just talk. We were one of the first pension providers to commit to net zero carbon emissions. We also promote workers’ rights, knowing that members like you make up a majority of the UK’s workforce. Actions like this form part of a strategy carefully crafted with you and your future in mind, as we believe it’s likely to make more money for you over time. 

So, how does it work as part of a pension fund? It’s simple, when you join, you’ll be put in a Nest Retirement Date Fund that matches the year we think you’ll start withdrawing your pension savings. That’s automatically set to your State Pension age. For example, if you’ll reach your State Pension age in 2055, you’ll be put in the 2055 Nest Retirement Date Fund. 

Your pension savings go into this fund. They’re then combined with other members’ pots and invested on your behalf using a four-phase approach that changes with your age. Your money is invested collectively because it gives you access to the kinds of investments that are only available to the largest investors, so you benefit from the kinds of deals that only large investors get - but it’s still always your money.

Where does my money go?

We put your money into investments like property, renewable energy plants, company shares like Samsung or Microsoft, commodities like gold, coffee or wheat, and much more. The exact proportion of how much is held in each sector depends on your age and how the markets are performing. However, we invest your money in more places than the average pension provider – this is our way of making sure we don’t keep all your eggs in one basket, which should help it grow more steadily and keep it safer.

You can find out more detail on where this fund is invested and how it’s performing in our latest quarterly investment report.

Use our investment information tool to find out which companies your money is invested in through your Nest pension.

Funds that adapt to your age

You’re likely to need different things from your pension at different stages of your life. In your twenties and thirties, it’s wise to build up your savings as quickly as possible. But if you’re close to withdrawing your savings, you need to protect yourself more from loss so you have secure funds to draw on in retirement. This is the main reason it’s important to keep your Nest retirement date aligned with your life plans.

Nest pension fund performance

There’s a reason you have a pension rather than putting your hard-earned money straight into a savings account. We invest it, which is how we can grow your money more than if you kept it in a bank over the years.  

Our aim is to grow the money in these funds more than the rising costs of living. After all, you want whatever you save now to buy you the same standard of life in the future. In the growth phase of this fund, we work to not only beat any rises in costs of living over time, but also add an extra 3% on top – and that’s after taking into account all charges and fees. 

Experts Defaqto have announced our Nest Retirement Date Funds as having some of the best risk-adjusted returns in the industry for the third year in a row. That means compared to other providers, we’ve grown our members’ savings while taking less risk with your money. 

Learn the difference between pot performance and fund performance, or see how Nest’s funds are performing.

How Nest Retirement Date Funds are different

At Nest, we work for you, and only you. Our investment strategy was created after years of research and consultation with workers like you across the country. We used this data to create funds that flex to your needs over the years. And because of how they’re set up, we can change our approach if the economy or financial markets shift unexpectedly – all while keeping your fund tailored to your age and working hard to build up your pot over the years.  

As with all our funds, our team of experts work hard to give you a bigger pension in a better world. Their careful, award-winning approach has been praised within the industry over the years. And through our responsible investment choices, we hope that saving for your future will help give you a future that’s worth saving for.