The retirement and savings business formerly called Phoenix Group, renamed Standard Life plc in March 2026, with major offices in Edinburgh and London.
Standard Life plc is one of the UK's largest providers of pensions, savings and retirement income. Its group includes the Standard Life brand, which people know from workplace pensions and savings, and long-standing life and pensions companies that look after older policies. Until March 2026 the group was called Phoenix Group. A pension or annuity is a long-term promise, so the people who work here spend a lot of time making sure customers are looked after for many years. The group describes its main areas as Pensions and Savings, and Retirement Solutions, and it also arranges pension deals for companies through bulk annuities.
In September 2025 the company said it would rename itself Standard Life plc to put its most trusted brand first. It said the change aims to unify its colleagues, strengthen its employer brand and help it grow. Its chief executive, Andy Briggs, has said the business has changed a great deal over the past five years since it acquired the Standard Life brand rights in 2021. The group says in its results that its Workplace business, which supports pensions arranged through employers, brought in £2.8 billion of net inflows in the half year, and that it re-entered the individual annuity market in late 2023. Those are company-reported figures from the half-year results, and they show that the business is still growing and hiring for new product areas.
The group traces its origins to 1857, when it began in London as The Pearl Loan Company. The head office is at 20 Old Bailey in London, and there is a Standard Life office on Lothian Road in Edinburgh. Wikipedia lists about 6,600 employees as at 2026 and the group serves the UK, Ireland and Germany. The group reports that it manages almost £300 billion of customer assets for 12 million customers.
The group is led by chairman Sir Nicholas Lyons and Andy Briggs. Its aim to unify colleagues behind one brand suggests a culture it wants to make more joined up, though that is the company's own claim. Roles include customer service, operations, actuarial, investment, technology, risk, legal and finance, because a large pensions business needs all of these.
In April 2026 it agreed to buy Aegon's UK business, which is covered separately here. We could not read the group's own careers or purpose pages, so check the Standard Life plc site for its stated purpose and values. The history shows a business that has grown by joining companies together: it agreed to buy Standard Life Assurance in 2018, completed ReAssure in 2020 and the Standard Life brand rights in 2021, and it now plans to bring in Aegon's UK business. Those moves are why the group wants one brand and one team, and why a new joiner could end up working across several older systems and teams. Wikipedia also lists its earlier name changes, from Pearl Group in 2008 to Phoenix Group Holdings in 2010 and Standard Life plc in 2026, which gives a sense of how long and varied its history is.
Website: www.standardlife.co.uk
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