The number of self-employed people actively saving into a pension has decreased steadily over the last decade, according to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The annual automatic enrolment report, published yesterday, found that the number of self-employed retirement savers had decreased from 27% in 2008/09 to 15% in 2017/18.

The main reason behind the steady decline was due to the volume of over-50s who stopped saving after becoming self-employed.

In January 2020, the UK's self-employed population passed five million for the first time.

The report also showed that a DWP trial to encourage more self-employed people to save into a pension has been unsuccessful.

Launched in October 2019, the trial involved sending four messages to nudge self-employed people to start saving for their retirement.

While the number of self-employed workers who opened these emails was over 45%, those who clicked-through was below 10%.

The report said:

"Initial findings from messaging trials suggest that initial open rates of messages are relatively high in comparison with analogous industry marketing emails.

"However, the percentage of recipients engaging further by then logging into their accounts is lower than expected."

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