The Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) has confirmed that the MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard is entering the next phase of testing, with a low volume of individuals using a real dashboard with real pensions data. 

The latest phase follows the successful completion of the first rounds of usability and industry expert testing, which provided valuable insights to help inform the first live iterations of the dashboard.

Whilst industry expert testing will continue, the PDP has confirmed that it is now also moving into low-volume testing, with the intention of running several rounds of testing over the next few months, commencing this month (October 2025).  

The focus will be on ensuring the service is broadly working as expected and identifying any critical or severe pain points that need to be resolved.

This testing will include up to 300 users, who will primarily be non-pension specialist employees recruited from pension providers and schemes connected to the ecosystem, and from existing research panels.

Around 50 users will take part in moderated testing, while the remainder will take part in unmoderated testing, which is intended to help prepare for future phases, informing the scope of higher volume testing.

In particular, testing is expected to assess whether users can understand the pensions dashboard service and navigate through the complete journey independently, including on mobile and desktop devices.

This includes evaluating how well they understand the information returned about their pensions.

"We will examine data matching performance, such as whether expected matches appear, and user expectations around acceptable match levels. This will include looking at users’ behaviour around providing their National Insurance number and impacts on data matching outcomes," the PDP stated. 

"Testing will also evaluate users' experience of GOV.UK One Login to prove their identity and identify any technical inconsistencies or accessibility issues that could impact the user experience.

"We will also look at where users need support during their journey, how they respond to error messages and warnings, and capture feedback on improving the overall service."

However, there will be limitations on this early testing, as the PDP confirmed that only state pension, simple defined contribution (DC) and simple defined benefit (DB) pensions will be displayed to users initially.

In addition to this, PDP confirmed that it will not test the industry’s ability to resolve possible matches during this phase, but we will instead focus on users’ support needs. 

It also confirmed that its user researchers conducting testing will not encourage participants to contact their pension providers and schemes, although it suggested that pension providers and schemes should be prepared to help individuals resolve their cases, as required by the legislation.

PDP is expected to share an informal update on its interim findings at the mid-point of this phase via its regular engagements and forums, before sharing the full key findings publicly at the end of the phase. 

Once low-volume testing concludes, testing volumes will increase to thousands of users in the next phase.

The scope and timing of this high-volume testing will be informed by findings in the low-volume phase.

"High-volume testing will be gradually scaled up over time until confidence is achieved in the performance of the service," PDP said.

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