Senior Pensions Associate, DB or DC
Job description
Original text imported from Reed
At Gallagher Benefit Services, you’re a trusted partner to organizations navigating some of their most important people decisions. We help clients build better workplaces, where people feel supported, empowered, and inspired to thrive. Whether it’s shaping benefit strategies, designing wellbeing programs, or advising on workforce challenges, the work you do here creates meaningful change for businesses and the people who power them. We’re a community of bold explorers, trusted experts, and compassionate partners; working side by side to solve problems, and shape the future of work. Here, curiosity is encouraged, collaboration is second nature, and your ideas have room to grow. If you’re looking for a place where your contribution matters and where you can help build a better world of work; think of Gallagher.
Overview
Advance Your Career as a Senior Pensions Associate at Gallagher!
Are you a seasoned pensions professional eager to make a meaningful impact in a dynamic and supportive environment? Join Gallagher as a Senior Pensions Associate (previously known as Senior Pension Administrator).
Why Gallagher?
This position has been created due to an internal promotion, reflecting our commitment to recognising talent and fostering career growth. At Gallagher, you’ll find a vibrant workplace where your contributions are celebrated, and your professional development is prioritised. Should you wish to pursue the Pension Management Institute’s CPC qualification, we will both support and fund your exams.
This is an exciting opportunity to advance your career in a role that values excellence, innovation, and collaboration. You’ll play a pivotal role in delivering exceptional service to our clients while mentoring and supporting junior team members.
How you'll make an impact
Within this role, you will take an active role in delivering a diverse range of occupational pension schemes, including Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution pensions; ensuring all tasks are completed accurately and promptly. Responsibilities include allocating cases, performing and verifying both automated and manual calculations, and coordinating pensioner payrolls, as well as drafting and reviewing correspondence and reports, managing cashflows, investments, disinvestments, and invoices.
- Provide supervision and training for our pensions administration team
- Encourage a collaborative and productive team environment
- Engaging with scheme members through various channels to address queries and offer solutions.
- Working closely with team members and build positive relationships with supporting teams.
- Supporting the Client Executive team and participate in client meetings or new business pitches as needed.
About You
- We are looking to speak to individuals with demonstrated expertise in pension scheme administration (DB or DC experience is essential)
- Have experience of checking team members work.
- Possess strong analytical skills and a logical approach to problem-solving
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office
- Outstanding communication skills.
- A team player who can effectively prioritise tasks to meet deadlines.
- Can leverage their pensions knowledge and experience to peer review cases, ensuring that scheme members receive accurate and pertinent information.
Gallagher Behaviors:
- Leading Self: Demonstrate integrity, trust, and personal responsibility.
- Leading Others & Relationships: Build diverse networks, collaborate effectively, and connect with influence.
- Leading Results: Deliver client excellence, plan strategically, and work towards results.
- Leading the Business: Demonstrate business knowledge, critical thinking, and innovation.
Join Us and Shape the Future!
At Gallagher, we invest in our people’s health, financial wellbeing, and career growth. If you're ready to tackle an exciting role as a Senior Pensions Administrator, apply now and become a part of our global success story. Your future starts here!
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#LI-Hybrid
Compensation and benefits
On top of a competitive salary, great teams and exciting career opportunities, we also offer a wide range of benefits.
Below are the minimum core benefits you’ll get, depending on your job level these benefits may improve:
- Minimum of 25 days holiday, plus bank holidays, and the option to ‘buy’ extra days
- Defined contribution pension scheme, which Gallagher will also contribute to
- Life insurance, which will pay 4x your basic annual salary, which you can top-up to 10x
- Income protection, we’ll cover up to 50% of your annual income, with options to top up
- Health cash plan or Private medical insurance
Other benefits include:
- Three fully paid volunteering days per year
- Employee Stock Purchase plan, offering company shares at a discount
- Share incentive plan, HMRC approved, tax effective, stock purchase plan
- Critical illness cover
- Discounted gym membership, with over 3,000 gyms nationally
- Season ticket loan
- Access to a discounted voucher portal to save money on your weekly shop or next big purchase
- Emergency back-up family care
- And many more…
We value inclusion and diversity
Inclusion and diversity (I&D) is a core part of our business, and it’s embedded into the fabric of our organisation. For more than 95 years, Gallagher has led with a commitment to sustainability and to support the communities where we live and work.
Gallagher embraces our employees’ diverse identities, eKey skills
AI-extracted from the job advert
Application advice
5 AI-generated recommendations to maximise your chances.
⭐ Lead your CV personal statement with explicit DB and/or DC pension scheme administration experience, as the advert states this is essential and appears in the role title itself.
📊 Quantify your pensions caseload: e.g. 'Administered DB scheme for 1,200 active members, processing 150+ manual calculations per quarter with 99.8% accuracy'.
🎯 Highlight any supervisory or checking experience prominently — the advert specifically asks for experience checking team members' work, which is a key differentiator at this seniority level.
🏅 If you hold or are studying towards the Pension Management Institute CPC qualification, list it clearly in a dedicated Qualifications section, as Gallagher explicitly funds and supports this exam.
🤝 Include a bullet demonstrating client-facing experience — the role involves client meetings and new business pitches, so evidence of presenting to or advising scheme sponsors will strengthen your application.
Suggested CV bullets
3 bullets our AI drafted for this specific advert, mirroring its ATS keywords.
Add these 3 bullets under your most recent experience:
- •Administered DB and DC pension schemes for a combined membership of 2,400 active and deferred members, processing over 200 manual benefit calculations annually with a 99.5% first-time accuracy rate.
- •Supervised and quality-checked the output of 4 junior pensions administrators, reducing correction rework by 30% over 12 months through structured peer-review checklists.
- •Coordinated monthly pensioner payroll runs for a 600-member DB scheme, reconciling cashflows and managing disinvestment instructions totalling £1.2M per quarter with zero payroll errors across 18 consecutive pay cycles.
Free to copy — tailoring requires a 30-sec CV upload.
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Letter preview — tailored to Appcast Enterprise
Dear Hiring Manager,
Gallagher Benefit Services' reputation for investing in its people — evidenced by funding the Pension Management Institute's CPC qualification — makes the Senior Pensions Associate position in Bristol a natural next step for me. With hands-on expertise in both Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution scheme administration, including manual calculations, pensioner payroll coordination, and cashflow management, I am confident I can deliver the accurate, client-focused service Gallagher's clients expect from day one.
My background in occupational pensions administration spans scheme member queries, correspondence drafting, and investment reconciliation across multi-employer arrangements. I have also taken responsibility for checking junior colleagues' work and providing on-the-job coaching, which aligns directly with the supervisory dimension of this role.
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Interview questions
10 questions generated from this advert.
Technical
- ›Walk us through how you would perform a manual transfer value calculation for a Defined Benefit scheme member.
- ›How do you ensure accuracy when coordinating a pensioner payroll run, and what controls do you apply?
- ›Describe your experience managing cashflows, investments, and disinvestments within an occupational pension scheme.
- ›What is your process for drafting and reviewing member correspondence to ensure it meets regulatory and scheme requirements?
- ›How do you approach allocating cases across a pensions administration team to balance workload and meet SLAs?
Behavioural
- ›Tell me about a time you identified an error in a colleague's pension calculation — how did you handle it?
- ›Describe a situation where you had to explain a complex pension concept to a scheme member who had no technical background.
- ›Give an example of how you have mentored or trained a junior team member and the impact it had on their performance.
- ›Tell me about a time you had to manage competing deadlines across multiple pension schemes — how did you prioritise?
- ›Describe a client meeting or pitch you contributed to — what was your role and what was the outcome?
STAR answer examples
Model answers using the Situation-Task-Action-Result framework. Adapt to your own experience.
Tell me about a time you identified an error in a colleague's pension calculation — how did you handle it?
Describe a situation where you had to manage competing deadlines across multiple pension schemes — how did you prioritise?