If your Final Salary pension is worth less than £30,000 you are free to transfer your pension yourself without seeking advice.  If your transfer value is higher than £30,000 then it is a regulatory requirement that you seek ‘appropriate’ advice from a qualified pension transfer specialist. This means they will need to provide you with an in-depth report exploring your suitability to transfer and a personal recommendation to transfer or not. Things a pension transfer specialist will consider: Your age Your financial situation and obligations Your long-term goals and motivations for transfer Any retirement plans you have Your general health and life expectancy Previous Investment experience Your understanding of and suitability for the risks involved in pension transfer Future Investment strategy Almost all of the big pension providers and platforms now require you to have a positive recommendation to transfer. Which means, if a pension transfer specialist has deemed it not in your best interests to transfer, you may find it difficult to transfer your pension yourself.  Whilst this might seem frustrating, these rules are designed to protect you and your pension in the long term. Even if you are able to transfer your pension yourself you should be very careful about doing so.  Whilst some pension providers make pension transfer sound like the sort of thing you can do over a cup of tea, doing so could prove extremely costly to your future. Protecting valuable pension benefits Defined Benefit pensions have incredibly valuable benefits attached to them which will be lost if you transfer. Pension Benefits could include (but are not limited to): Protected pension age (for early retirement) Guaranteed income for life   Tax-free cash Life insurance Spouse/survivor's pension provision So it's important to have a Pension Transfer Specialist take a look at your old pensions and make sure that you haven't missed something that you might regret giving up. Better safe than sorry. The problem with self-management & pensions In the age of robo-advice and easy ways to invest, it might seem like a good idea to manage your pension yourself but the research makes for grim reading. Research by Insurance giant Zurich found that almost 41% of those in drawdown without financial advice will run out of money in retirement. The research found that​​​​​​​ a large percentage of self-investors were unprepared and uneducated about the risks they were taking on. Despite that many were choosing to go it alone without consulting a financial adviser.  If your motivation for consolidating your pension yourself is to save money, you should consider the high cost of making a mistake and also look at the research published in 2019 showing that, even when you take fees into account, those who take Financial Advice end up on average nearly £50,000 better off over a decade.