NHS, teachers, civil service, old company schemes — why £10,000/yr of DB pension is worth more than most people's entire DC pot, how to compare added-pension offers, and why transferring out is almost always wrong.
People with defined benefit pensions chronically undervalue them, because DB pensions state themselves as income while everything else states itself as a pot. The conversion is brutal in DB's favour: at today's annuity rates, buying £10,000 a year of guaranteed, inflation-linked, spouse-protected income at 65 costs roughly £220,000–£250,000. A teacher with £18,000/yr of accrued DB pension holds the equivalent of a £400,000+ pot — and often doesn't know it.
The number that matters is the accrued annual pension — what you've banked so far, payable from normal pension age, revalued with inflation. Modern career-average schemes (NHS 2015, Teachers' 2015, Civil Service alpha) accrue between 1/43rd and 1/57th of each year's salary; a £45,000 earner in the NHS scheme banks ~£830 of annual pension every year worked — call it £20,000 of annuity-equivalent value, on top of salary. That's the honest lens on "should I opt out to boost take-home": opting out declines roughly a 40%+ effective employer contribution.
Most public schemes sell added pension: a lump sum today buys extra guaranteed annual income for life. Compare the price per £1/yr against the ~£22–25 per £1/yr that annuity markets charge — added pension is often cheaper, and it's index-linked. The alternative is a parallel DC pot (AVCs or a SIPP): more flexible, accessible earlier, IHT treatment of its own, but market risk is yours. Neither is automatically right; the comparison is a price, and it should be made as one.
Transfers out of unfunded public schemes are banned; for private DB schemes a transfer value over £30,000 legally requires regulated advice, and the FCA's starting assumption — that transferring is not in your interest — is right for almost everyone: a transfer swaps guaranteed indexed income for market risk you now carry through your own 90s. Hundred Summers models DB pensions as what they are — indexed income streams alongside your DC pots and the State Pension — so your projection shows the guarantee doing its quiet work in every year, which is the best cure for undervaluing it.