In reply to Bottom Clinger:
What is salary sacrifice?
Salary sacrifice is an arrangement employers may make available to employees – the employee agrees to reduce their earnings by an amount equal to their pension contributions.
And in exchange, the employer then agrees to pay the total pension contributions. So, any contributions paid to us will be treated as employer only.
Using salary sacrifice means that the employee and the employer pay less National Insurance contributions. Employers may decide to maximise the amount of pension contributions by adding the savings they make in lower employer National Insurance contributions to the total pension contribution amount they pay.
If your employer is using a defined contribution scheme (like The People’s Pension), then the qualifying earnings used to meet the minimum requirement are based on the post-sacrifice level of salary.