The part of a pension that rises by a different number

An annual uprating is reported as one number. A State Pension award is often made of several parts. Those two facts do not sit together comfortably, and the result is a calculation that looks simple and comes out wrong.

For the April 2026 uprating, two percentages were in play: 4.8% on the full standard rates, and 3.8% on certain additional and protected elements. Applying the first to the whole of an award overstates the increase.

What the additional elements are

Under the system that operated before April 2016, a State Pension could have two layers. The basic State Pension was a flat-rate amount built on qualifying years. On top of that sat an earnings-related layer, generally known as the Additional State Pension.

That layer was built up under successive schemes — the State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme from the late 1970s, then the State Second Pension from 2002 — and the amount depends on earnings history. People who were contracted out of it, paying lower National Insurance while building a workplace pension instead, have less of it or none.

Some people also have Graduated Retirement Benefit, a small earnings-related amount from a scheme that ran in the 1960s and early 1970s, which still appears on awards today.

Term explained: protected payment

Where a person's State Pension position at April 2016 came out above the full new State Pension rate, the excess was kept as a protected payment. It is uprated separately from the full standard rate.

The two percentages for 2026/27

The Triple Lock governs the full basic and new State Pension rates. For 2026/27 the determining measure was earnings growth at 4.8%. Additional and protected elements, however, follow the September Consumer Prices Index figure, which was 3.8%.

Summary of the published uprating percentages. Source: DWP benefit and pension rates 2026 to 2027. Individual awards vary; this table describes which percentage attaches to which element, not what anybody receives.

What that does to a real-looking award

Take a hypothetical pre-2016 award with three lines on it. The figures are invented to show the mechanism; they are not anybody's entitlement.

Illustration only. The combined increase here is about 4.5%, not 4.8%. Multiplying the whole £241.85 by 4.8% would have suggested £253.46 — roughly 67p a week more than the components actually produce.

Sixty-seven pence a week is not a large error. The point is that it is an error, and it grows with the size of the additional element. Somebody whose award is mostly additional pension will see a combined increase much closer to 3.8% than to the headline.

Why the two figures differ at all

Because they come from different rules. The Triple Lock comparison — earnings, prices, or 2.5%, whichever is highest — applies to the full standard rates. Most other benefit and pension figures across the system are uprated by the September price inflation figure alone.

In a year when prices rise faster than earnings, the two percentages can land the other way round, or be identical. For 2026/27 earnings growth was the higher measure, so the gap opened in the direction described here. How three numbers decide next year's pension covers that comparison.

How to tell which elements you have

The annual uprating letter normally itemises the components rather than giving a single total. Where more than one line appears, each should be read against the percentage that applies to it rather than against the headline.

This is one of the specific things worth looking for on the letter, and it is covered alongside the others in three lines worth checking on your pension letter.

A related wrinkle: inherited elements

Additional State Pension can in some circumstances be inherited from a late spouse or civil partner, under rules that depend on when the person reached State Pension age and when the death occurred. An inherited element behaves like other additional pension for uprating purposes, which means it follows the 3.8% figure rather than the headline.

The inheritance rules themselves are among the more complicated parts of the system, and the Pension Service is the right place to establish what applies in a specific case.

What to take from it

Read the uprating percentage as a statement about the full standard rates, not about an award. If a pension letter lists more than one component, the headline figure describes one line on it. Everything else has its own number, and the combined increase sits somewhere between the two.