This was a popular way of saving for retirement as what the employee receives in retirement was defined by the employer in advance of them retiring, regardless of investment performance. The benefits of this were that the employee had confidence with how much income they would have in retirement so could plan accordingly.

However, because the employer bears all the investment risk it is difficult for them to accurately predict how much money needs to be set aside for their pension obligations to employees.

As life expectancy increases, investment returns have fallen, and the pension liabilities of defined benefit schemes have increasingly fallen under regulatory scrutiny, employers have found this type of pension difficult to run and no longer sustainable for the business.

This means that many defined benefit schemes have closed to new members – in fact there are no companies in the FTSE 100 still offering this type of pension to new employees.

This guide looks at the different workplace pension options today, the pros and cons of different approaches and the impact of the raft of pension legislation changes of late. It also reviews government proposals for so-called ‘defined ambition’ plans.

Advisers will learn how the different types of workplace pension schemes need to be considered in light of automatic enrolment requirements and the new freedoms to access pension pots that are being introduced in April 2015.

Contributors of material to this guide were: David Brooks, technical consultant at Broadstone; Jamie Jenkins, head of workplace policy at Standard Life; Paul Budgen, channel manager for product and marketing at Nest; and John Reeve, senior consultant at Premier Pensions Management.