A decade after the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) became the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) in 2015, the organisation is taking the next step in its evolution with a bold rebrand to Pensions UK.
The new name, logo and website aim to represent more than a visual refresh. Instead, they mark the start of a strategic campaign designed to reposition the organisation as the leading voice driving better pensions for everyone.
Central to this campaign is Pensions UK’s five-year strategy, 2030 Ready, accompanied by a report that does more than outline policy priorities. It sets the direction for how the organisation will develop the pension system and its own operations, creating a tangible link between the new brand and the work the organisation will do over the coming decade.
Edward Bogira, head of marketing and communications at Pensions UK, says the rebrand was an organic evolution. It followed the conclusion of a strategic review and a period of reflection on how best to present the organisation to its members and the wider industry.
But rather than simply implementing a new name, Pensions UK is using the rebrand to cement its identity and signal its ambition, turning what could have been a one-off change into a long-term platform for engagement, thought leadership and influence across the pensions sector.
The strategy behind the name
The decision to rebrand as Pensions UK was never just about a new name. It was a brand strategy move designed to reposition the organisation in the minds of its audience and sharpen how it communicates its role across the industry, to policymakers and to the public.
Bogira says the motivation was to restate clearly what the association is, and what it does. The rebrand, he explains, is not about changing the organisation’s purpose but about marketing that purpose more effectively.
For more than a century, the organisation has existed to make pensions better for everyone involved. Its role has always been to unite the industry behind that purpose and to drive the policy changes that make it possible, according to Bogira.
That mission hasn’t changed, but the landscape in which it operates has, he explains. In recent years, pensions have been under intense scrutiny from government, with a wave of new regulation and further reforms still to come. Consolidation has become a central priority, with master trusts growing rapidly and local government pension schemes pooling assets.
For example, the UK government has made consolidation of pension schemes a high priority on its agenda to create fewer, bigger funds. Master trusts have grown and there’s been pooling of Local Government Pensions Schemes (LGPS).
In addition to examining the current market that pension schemes are operating in, Pensions UK also projected the environment that it will be operating in in five or 10 years’ time and found that these themes look set to continue, he adds.
“We think the assets of master trusts will more than triple and LGPS assets will double. Defined Benefit (DB) pensions are also going through a transformation, depending on whether you run on, buy out or merge into a super fund,” he says.
At the same time, the UK government is increasingly focused on the role pensions should play in the wider economy, asking whether funds should go beyond providing retirement security to actively supporting growth and investment in the UK.
Against this backdrop, Pensions UK wanted to send a clear signal that even in times of change, it remains the home of the pensions industry, championing both schemes and the savers they serve.
The rebrand is therefore about positioning. By adopting the name Pensions UK, the association has chosen a brand that is simpler, more inclusive and more resonant – one that reflects its ambition to represent the entire industry, not just its membership base.
That strategy was underlined with the launch of the ‘2030 Ready’ report. The report sets out not only Pensions UK’s view of the challenges ahead but also how the organisation will evolve to help members prepare for the realities of the next decade. It provides a narrative that ensures the rebrand is about more than a new identity – it is about setting a direction.
Bogira adds that as the pensions landscape evolved, “lifetime savings” no longer made sense in the name. Today, it’s rarely treated as a separate concept and is increasingly wrapped up under the pensions umbrella, making the simpler, clearer Pensions UK a better fit.
“Lifetime savings disappeared from our name. It’s still a thing but what you get at the end of it is a pension. That’s what most people call it,” he says.
“Whether that is from a pension scheme or a house or an ISA, people call it a pension. We landed on this polarity of a simple name that said what we’re about.”
Addressing concerns and costs
No matter how carefully planned, a rebrand always comes with challenges. Having navigated the previous shift from NAPF to PLSA, Bogira was well placed to manage them, yet the team still faced practical and perceptual hurdles. Chief among them, he says, was cost.
“We did the rebrand incredibly quickly, and were conscious of the fact that our money comes from our members, so we wanted to keep the cost to a minimum,” he says.
He adds that for an organisation of just 50 staff, that was more challenging in practice. Pensions UK relies heavily on external suppliers for its three main web and tech platforms, which were areas where most of the rebrand spend was concentrated. Therefore, managing those relationships while staying on budget required both creativity and discipline, he says.
“We had to be very creative with the creative and avoid too much navel-gazing about what we wanted to project and too many iterations of the design. But fortunately, we had done the work with the strategy review the year before,” he explains.
However, cost wasn’t the only hurdle as Bogira also flags concerns about how members would perceive the rebrand. One worry was visibility, especially in a sector crowded with organisations whose names often start with “P,” meaning there was a risk the new brand would go unnoticed.
“In pensions, there’s a lot of bodies with the letter P at the start or in there somewhere. It’s a bit of an alphabet soup. So, we were concerned if anyone would even notice,” he says.
Beyond visibility, clarity of communication was critical. Members needed to understand that Pensions UK was the new PLSA and that the organisation’s mission and services remained unchanged. Bogira notes there were concerns over whether members would understand the change if they received communications from Pensions UK, such as emails or updates, and connect it to the former PLSA.
“Members are obviously who we’re here for, and we don’t want to lose them. So, there was a challenge around making sure people recognise that we’ve made this change and it’s us,” he says.
Finally, there was the inevitable question of reception and whether members and the wider industry would approve of the new identity. Fortunately, Bogira says the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive so far. Attendees at events and observers on social media have responded that the new identity is clear, logical and makes sense.
Bringing the rebrand to life
The shift from PLSA to Pensions UK is more than a name change, it’s a repositioning exercise designed to reset how the industry sees the organisation. And at the heart of that strategy is the annual conference, which is repackaged as a marketing move to make the rebrand stick.
This year’s event carries the title ‘2030 Ready,’ but Bogira says this is more than just a conference tagline. The phrase also brands the report that sets out Pensions UK’s strategy, its policy priorities and its long-term view of the sector. Therefore, linking the two is a deliberate move to ensure every touchpoint, from the stage to the page, reinforces the new identity.
“We dropped conference names for a while,” he notes. “But we gave the annual conference the name ‘2030 Ready’ precisely so we could connect it to the rebrand and reinforce it.”
To strengthen this approach, the conference programme has been built around the themes of the ‘2030 Ready’ report. This enables the sessions themselves to become a vehicle for messaging.
Every panel and keynote will echo Pensions UK’s goals of preparing the industry for the decade ahead, and showing what must be done now and in the next five years to get there, he says.
“It unites everything – all of our policy and practical and thought leadership work is united in the conference under that theme of being ‘2030 Ready,” he says.
That makes the event not just another industry gathering but the launchpad for the new brand.
“We had a launch event with 100 people or so. But if things go well, there will be 1300-1400 people at the annual conference, so we’ll be introducing ourselves or reintroducing ourselves to everybody for the first time in person,” he says.
For Pensions UK, the stakes are high as the new name is designed to be inclusive. Bogira says the name is not just the badge of an association but a brand that reflects and represents the entire pensions industry. The conference offers the scale and visibility to market that idea, turning the rebrand from a statement on paper into a lived experience for thousands of industry professionals.
As a result, the annual conference stands as a marketing engine to drive home what Pensions UK wants to stand for: a single, unifying voice for pensions across the UK.
That positioning even extends to how people talk about the event itself. Bogira notes that in the past, attendees would casually ask, “Are you going to the PLSA this year?”
While the shorthand worked, it never fully captured the association’s role. Whereas with Pensions UK, the fit is far stronger as the name signals the organisation is not just an association but the home of the pensions industry. This makes it natural for the conference to be seen as the gathering point for the whole sector, he adds.
While the conference is a major moment, Bogira emphasises that it is only one step in a wider strategy to embed the rebrand.
“The rebrand will continue to be a campaign umbrella for a further series of reports on our sectoral membership, DB, DC, LGPS and master trust, and then through thought leadership pieces on themes like AI,” he says.
That approach is already taking shape. A new content series on Pensions UK’s member platform distils the key messages of the ‘2030 Ready’ report and sets out how the organisation will deliver on its goals under the new brand. And this is only the start as there are more reports, campaigns and thought leadership pieces planned.
With these moves, Pensions UK has turned a simple name change into a strategic repositioning. Despite hurdles – from managing costs to ensuring members recognised and understood the change – the organisation has successfully navigated these challenges with careful planning and creative solutions to successfully clarify the organisation’s purpose.
By linking the rebrand to initiatives like the ‘2030 Ready’ conference and a series of thought leadership reports, Pensions UK is positioning the new identity as a long-term platform rather than a one-off launch.