Pension enrolment assessor
A small system for any employer with variable hours: every pay run assessed against dated thresholds with the reason kept, postponement treated as a decision with a notice attached, and staff messages routed to the scheme’s own process rather than answered with an opinion. Seven posts on the same system, one diagram at a time, with a cost breakdown and an engineering reference at the end.
- 01
A pension enrolment assessor on AWS for a few dollars a month
The whole system on one page — per-period assessment, the dates duties hang off, and the messages — and why a variable-hours workforce breaks a once-and-done view of pensions.
- 02
One extra hour over the trigger
Categorising each worker in each pay reference period by age and earnings paid, the thresholds published per pay frequency, and what stops changing once somebody is an active member.
- 03
Postponement is a decision with a date on it
Where automatic enrolment dates come from, the joining window that follows each one, and using postponement deliberately: the notice, the deferral date, and the assessment made on that date.
- 04
When a message says leave the pension
Classifying free-text staff messages into leaving, joining, changing contributions or asking, checking whether a request to join is a valid notice, and routing each to a fixed, reviewed reply.
- 05
The opt-out window, the refund, and three years later
Processing a valid opt-out, the refund and its deadline, what ceasing membership does differently, and cyclical re-enrolment with its twelve-month exception and the re-declaration of compliance.
- 06
What the pension enrolment assessor costs
About $2 a month. One Bedrock read per message is the only line that grows; the queue, the table, the mail and the storage are rounding errors. Plus the three ways the bill could surprise you.
- 07
Engineering reference: the pension enrolment assessor architecture
Same system, drawn purely for engineers. Service names, region, Lambda inventory, IAM scopes, the schemas and the exact model id.
Frequently asked questions
- Who has to be automatically enrolled?
- Workers aged from 22 up to state pension age whose earnings paid in a pay period are above the earnings trigger for that period. For 2026/27 the trigger is £10,000 a year, published as £192 for a weekly pay period and £833 for a monthly one. Other workers have the right to opt in or to ask to join instead.
- Why assess every pay period rather than once?
- Because the test is applied to the earnings paid in each period. A worker contracted for twelve hours who is paid for fifteen in one week can cross the trigger in that week, and that single week creates the duty to enrol them.
- Can the employer start an opt-out for somebody?
- No. The opt-out notice comes from the pension scheme, not from the employer, and the employer must not encourage anybody to leave. Once a valid notice exists the employer stops deductions and refunds the worker, and that part the system does track.
- What happens every three years?
- Workers who left the scheme are assessed again and put back in if they are eligible, with exceptions such as somebody who left in the previous twelve months. The employer then re-declares compliance to The Pensions Regulator within five months of the anniversary.
- What does it cost to run?
- About two dollars a month. See part six.