The Department for Work and Pensions has published an updated timetable for occupational pension schemes and personal and stakeholder providers to be connected to the Pensions Dashboard.

Connections are due to start in April 2025, giving the first schemes to connect more than a year to ensure they're ready ahead of the October 2026 deadline.

All 3,000 schemes will be legally required to be connected to the dashboard system by 31 October 2026 at the latest.

Paul Maynard, pensions minister, said: “Since the reset was initiated last year, the Pensions Dashboards Programme has made significant progress building and testing the system which will enable pensions dashboards to work.

“Subject to satisfactory testing, the programme plans to begin the process of connecting the organisations building a direct connection, including DWP State Pension, from August 2024. Connection testing will then continue to ensure readiness to support wider industry connection from early 2025.”

He said the staged timetable will help smooth the process of connecting the approximately 3,000 pension schemes and providers by the connection deadline.

He said: “The timetable prioritises connection of the largest pension schemes and providers, so that crucial user testing can quickly take place at scale, with the first cohort expected to have completed connection by the end of April 2025.”

The largest schemes are expected to connect to the dashboard by 30 April 2025 with deadlines for further schemes following monthly throughout the year.

Kate Smith, head of pensions at Aegon, said: “We hope that all schemes will follow the guidance, to ensure connection is carried out in an orderly manner avoiding ‘last minute’ connections and potential log jams. The pension dashboard programme and government will need to monitor this closely.”

Anthony Rafferty, chief executive of Origo, said: “The pensions minister's announcement creates renewed emphasis for pension providers to have their data preparation underway and their solution for connection to the PDP central architecture chosen or in advance stages of being planned.”

He said the industry is predicted to receive millions of requests for pensions data when dashboards are fully live. “Providers therefore need to be ‘dashboard ready’, with a robust and scalable service which can securely and compliantly handle their pension dashboard processing requirements.”

Jonathan Hawkins, proposition lead, Bravura, said: “Having confirmed dates to work towards is exactly what the industry needs and will help towards firmly putting the PDP back to the top of the corporate agenda following the long reset period.”

Rocio Concha, Which? director of policy and advocacy, said: "The timeframes set out are clear and there can be no further delay to the implementation of dashboards, which has already taken far too long. The government and industry must now work together to introduce dashboards as soon as possible.”

See the full staged timetable here