In reply to stevieb:
> Thanks, the consultant also said it was before NI, on the salary sacrifice approach?
> I was a bit nervous of SIPPs as I probably wouldn't manage it enough, but can you just use the SIPP to drop the money in a unit trust anyway?
Yes - the SIPP is just a 'wrapper' that your pension cash is held within. You could leave it all in cash there if you wanted (not a great idea). Most providers will have some sort of 'standard' unit trust designed as a safe, moderate, middle of road default option, or you can pick one or more funds yourself.
I'm with Hargreaves, I generally just let a set %age of my monthly contribution go into each of about 8 funds. I alter the %ages now and again, or sell a position and move it to an alternate once in a while and occasionally build up cash and invest in a few equities.
If managing yourself, keep it simple, understand what you are going into and sanity check eery 2 or 3 years and most importantly, as you get older reduce risk so that you are not fully invested in equities, in the run up to retirement just in case you hit a significant downturn market which could easily damage your pot just before retirement. Some funds/providers have options around automatically altering your profile based on age bands to capture that risk for you (lifestyling I think it may be called).