How to Calculate Your Firefighter Pension: CARE Examples

The formula in one line: pensionable pay ÷ 59.7

The English Firefighters’ Pension Scheme 2015 is a career average revalued earnings (CARE) scheme. For every scheme year, an amount equal to 1/59.7 of your pensionable pay is credited to your pension account. The official member website gives the formula as 1/59.7 × pensionable pay = pension earned, and notes that 1/59.7 is called the accrual rate. Divided out, that is roughly £16.75 of annual pension for every £1,000 of pensionable pay.

Unlike the older 1992 and 2006 schemes, nothing in FPS 2015 is based on your final salary. A promotion late in your career lifts only the years you spend at the higher pay; the earlier years stay at the earlier pay, though they are revalued. That is the single biggest change when comparing a CARE pension with a final salary one.

Three numbers drive everything: your pensionable pay in each year, the accrual rate for your scheme and nation, and the revaluation applied every 1 April. This guide takes them in turn, then combines them into worked examples.

What counts as pensionable pay

Pensionable pay is similar to salary, but it has a formal definition, and it is not the same as everything on your payslip. According to the official member website it includes pay for performing the duties of your role (except allowances or emoluments paid on a temporary basis), your permanent elements of pay (including a retained firefighter’s retaining allowance), amounts given up under salary sacrifice arrangements such as cycle to work, and continued professional development (CPD) payments where the authority has determined they are pensionable.

That means your basic salary and permanent pensionable allowances build pension, while temporary payments do not. Overtime is generally not part of this picture in the same way as basic pay, but the exact treatment of any individual payment is set by regulations and your authority’s determination, so check the pensionable pay note attached to your statement or ask your administrator.

Periods where your pay is stopped or reduced can use assumed pensionable pay — broadly the pay you would have received if you had not been absent. For sick leave on reduced pay this is applied automatically; for some unpaid absences you have to pay in the missing contributions. See the guide to pension contributions for how absence interacts with the bands.

Revaluation: how the pension account grows while you serve

Every 1 April, the pension already in your active pension account is increased by a revaluation figure. For FPS 2015 members who are still serving, that figure is based on average weekly earnings (AWE), applied through a Treasury order. This differs from what many people assume: most public service CARE schemes revalue by prices, but the firefighter scheme regulations use earnings for active members and CPI for deferred members and pensioners.

The rate for 2026 was confirmed in an SPPA circular of 4 March 2026 as 4.8% (earnings), alongside a 3.8% CPI-based increase for pensions in payment and deferred pensions from 6 April 2026. The Scottish circular is about the Scottish scheme, but it reports the same Treasury figures that apply across the UK public service schemes. Rates change every year, so treat 4.8% as one data point, not a forecast.

In the official LGA member example, the pension built each year is added to the account and the whole balance is revalued the following April. The worked examples below follow that convention: at each 1 April the opening balance is multiplied by (1 + revaluation), then the new year’s pension is added.

Worked examples: what 20, 25 and 30 years could look like

The table below applies the formula to a firefighter on £40,358 pensionable pay in every year, using three revaluation assumptions. It is a simplified picture in today’s pay: it ignores promotion, pay awards over time, part-time working and any legacy service. Its purpose is to show how sensitive the answer is to revaluation and length of service, not to predict your pension. For the full year-by-year approach, use the free pension calculator.

At 0% revaluation, 30 years gives 30 × £676.01 = £20,280 a year. At 3% assumed revaluation the same 30 years produces about £32,162, because early years compound for many years. At 4.8% — the April 2026 rate, repeated every year, which is unlikely — the figure would be about £43,401. The gap between the columns is why revaluation experience matters as much as years served.

All figures are annual pension before any early retirement reduction, before tax and before any lump sum exchange. They are for a retirement at the normal pension age of 60 from a career spent wholly in FPS 2015 at that pay.

From account balance to retirement income

Your CARE balance at retirement is the annual pension you would receive at the normal pension age of 60, if you take it then. Take it earlier — from age 55 — and an actuarial reduction applies because it will be paid for longer. The LGA’s November 2023 retirement factsheet showed English active early retirement reductions of 20% at 55, 16.6% at 56, 12.9% at 57, 8.9% at 58 and 4.6% at 59. Those factors are reviewed periodically, so ask for a current quotation.

Retire after 60 and you keep building pension until you draw it, and receive an age addition. You can also take partial retirement from 55: the pension built so far is paid (reduced if under 60) while you keep working and build a second account. All of this is covered in the guides on retirement age and early retirement.

For a lump sum, you can exchange part of your annual pension at £12 of lump sum for each £1 of pension given up, up to 25% of the pension, within the lump sum allowance (£268,275 for most people). Giving up £4,000 of a £16,000 pension gives £48,000 and leaves £12,000 a year. The pension lump sum calculator and the guide to commutation go through that trade-off.

The same pay in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

Firefighter pensions are devolved. England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each run their own FPS 2015, and the accrual rate is one of the differences. The English rate is 1/59.7. The Welsh explanatory memorandum records 1/61.4, the Scottish Public Pensions Agency states 1/61.6, and the Northern Ireland scheme page states 1/64.8. A lower fraction means a smaller slice of pension per pound of pay, usually paired with different contribution rates and early retirement factors.

Northern Ireland also differs on normal pension age: its 2015 scheme page gives 55, where England, Wales and Scotland use 60. Contribution structures differ too: England moved to five bands on actual pensionable pay from 1 April 2026, Wales moved to grade-based tiers from 1 September 2025, and Scotland publishes its own four bands. See the nation guides on the Welsh scheme, the Scottish scheme and the Northern Ireland scheme.

Legacy service and the remedy: why you may have more than one slice

If you joined before 1 April 2015 you may have benefits in the 1992 or 2006 final salary schemes as well as FPS 2015. Those legacy pensions are calculated on your pay at retirement, not on career averages, and they have their own retirement ages and lump sum rules. The 1992 scheme, for example, gives 1/60 per year for the first 20 years and 2/60 thereafter. See FPS 1992 explained, FPS 2006 explained and the three-scheme comparison.

Members who were in service on or before 31 March 2012 and again on or after 1 April 2015 are covered by the age discrimination remedy. For the remedy period, 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022, affected members will choose between legacy and FPS 2015 benefits at retirement, so the calculation for those years is done twice and the better option can be selected. That is why a simple online CARE calculator cannot give your full answer. Read the McCloud remedy guide and the remediable service statement guide.

Common mistakes when calculating a firefighter pension

The most frequent error is using the wrong pay figure: last year’s salary rather than pensionable pay, or including allowances that are not pensionable. The second is applying CPI where the scheme uses earnings for serving members. The third is treating an estimate as a promise: the statement’s estimate of pension at 60 is based on the pension built to date plus what you could build to 60, and it does not include any future revaluation, so it will normally understate what a serving member’s CARE account actually grows to.

Other traps include forgetting the early retirement reduction, forgetting that the lump sum exchange lowers your annual pension, using another nation’s accrual rate, and ignoring legacy service. Working out your position also depends on your own tax: pension income is taxed as ordinary income through PAYE, and no National Insurance is paid on pension income, according to the official tax page. Compare your take-home in the pay calculator alongside any pension figures.

• Use pensionable pay, not gross pay from the payslip
• Revalue the opening balance, then add the new year — in that order
• State every assumption (revaluation, pay growth, retirement age) next to the result
• Show the reduced pension and the lump sum together if you exchange pension for cash
• Keep legacy and remedy slices separate

A step-by-step method you can repeat every year

Once you understand the mechanism, a repeatable annual routine takes ten minutes and catches errors early. Do it when your annual benefit statement arrives; the statutory deadline for statements is 31 August each year, with figures as at 31 March.

1. Find your pensionable pay for the scheme year from your payslips or the statement, and check it excludes temporary allowances.
2. Divide that pay by 59.7 (England) or your nation’s accrual figure to get the year’s pension credit.
3. Take last year’s closing balance and multiply by (1 + the revaluation for that year).
4. Add the new year’s credit to get this year’s closing balance, and compare it with your statement.
5. Project forward with two or three revaluation and pay assumptions, and note the range rather than a single number.
6. If you have legacy service or the remedy applies, ask your administrator for the legacy and FPS 2015 figures side by side.