About CAPAdata
CAPAdata provides the deepest publicly available benchmarking of UK workplace pension defaults - covering providers managing more than 95% of multi-employer defined contribution pensions by assets and members. That breadth matters, because better transparency leads to better outcomes for the millions of UK workers whose retirement savings are on the line.
Our data, insights and tools support everyone in the pensions ecosystem - advisers, trustees, consultants, employers, providers, asset managers and members - with independent information and clear meaningful analysis they can actually use.
CAPAdata has shaped thinking at the FCA and The Pensions Regulator in the development of the Value for Money Framework, which has adopted several of our metrics. We are also cited as a key independent data source in multiple government consultation papers.
What We Measure
The heart of CAPAdata is the Corporate Adviser Pensions Average - the CAPA - which tracks the mean return of default funds across the UK's largest DC workplace pension providers. Where a provider operates more than one default, the CAPA constituent is their biggest default by number of active members.
The CAPA is one lens, not the whole picture. Used alongside the wider range of performance metrics on this site, it helps identify outlier strategies and flags where schemes are falling meaningfully behind their peers.
More than 90% of workers invest in their employer's default fund, which is why we focus here. The data reflects each provider's most widely used fund - the one that matters most to the most people.
A Note on Charges
Performance figures are shown as gross returns - before charges - because what individuals actually pay can vary. Most schemes charge a simple annual percentage of fund value, but some combine contribution charges with annual management charges, or fixed monthly fees with an annual management charge. You'll find each provider's specific charging structure in their individual tables.
How We Handle Fund Changes Over Time (Chain-Linking)
Pension providers occasionally change which fund is their primary default - sometimes through formal member transfers, sometimes because a newer fund simply grows to overtake the previous one. To keep our historical data meaningful, CAPAdata uses a chain-linking approach.
When a new fund becomes a provider's largest default by active membership, we chain-link the performance series from the first full quarter after that change. This means the CAPA always reflects the experience of the biggest group of each provider's active members at any given point in time - not a single fund that may no longer represent the majority.
This approach also prevents a provider from quietly retiring an underperforming legacy fund and resetting the clock on their long-term track record.
Where chain-linking has been applied, this is clearly noted in the data. And where a fund's individual long-term history differs from the chain-linked series, we show both - so you can always see the full picture.
Who We Are
Sam Seaton, CEO
Sam has a long track record leading fintech businesses, including Moneyhub and eValue. She is a member of the government-led Pension Dashboard Advisory Group (PDAG) and brings both commercial rigour and a genuine passion for making pensions work better for ordinary people.
John Greenwood, Founder
John is editor-in-chief of Corporate Adviser and has been analysing workplace pension data for over 20 years. His research is regularly shared with HM Treasury, the DWP, the Bank of England, the FCA and The Pensions Regulator, and has directly inspired regulatory reform. His work on DC pensions is also widely covered in the national press.
Get Involved
The CAPA has been shaped by lengthy discussions with industry experts - but we want our analysis to reflect the best thinking across the whole sector. If you have ideas for how we can improve our monitoring of master trusts and other defaults, or if you operate a default fund you'd like included in the research, we'd love to hear from you.
Contact Us
For all enquiries: info@capadata.co.uk or call +44 (0)20 3916 5974
CAPAdata is owned by CAPA-data Limited
Company number 16247758
167-169 Great Portland Street, 5th Floor, London, England, W1W 5PF