Nice position that you are in! Personally if I was you I would:
-Look at my current situation in life. In the next few years are you planning on getting married (needs money), having kids (they definitely cost money), needing a bigger house (stamp duty and the cost of moving). Do this so you know to keep some of your cash in accessible investments like a 30 day access deposit account as opposed to putting everything in a 10 year bond.
-Definitely contribute to a pension. Based on your age you will be able to contribute 20% of the salary you earned last year. The basics of what a pension is is located here: [broken link removed]
Once you understand the different types of pensions you then need to pick one. Look at the long term performance and the management charges. Some pension funds might be all equities, some all bonds, all property, a mixture. I personally would pick a mixed fund. The general investment rule is if you are younger you should invest in riskier asset classes (e.g. equities) but as you get older you should move to more secure asset classes (e.g. bonds).
As discussed above, you need to get moving on this asap to make a payment for 2008.
-Reduce the term on my mortgage. You did say you didn't want to pay off any of the mortgage but why don't you consider reducing the TERM on the mortgage (26 years is a lot). It will increase your monthly repayments but play with Karl Jeacle's calculator and you can see how much money you will save over the long term.
http://www.drcalculator.com/mortgage/
-I would take a look at the Business expansion scheme to see if there was any interesting companies. It is tax efficient but risky. Personally I have always been interested in small businesses so that is why i'm including it here. More information here:
[broken link removed]
-I would definitely keep some money on deposit with the best rates I could find.
-I would look at something like a capital secured investment fund the banks often offer - something like:
[broken link removed]
[broken link removed]
Please note I have only just linked these to show you what a capital secured product is structured like, i'm not encouraging you to invest in these ones in particular. Research all the banks, call them up and ask them what capital secured products they have, what the minimum & maximum deposits are and what the performance is like to date.
-I have an interest in share trading, for e.g. if I like a particular company, I might buy some shares. I would open a cheap online broker account (people have researched them on askaboutmoney before) and buy some shares. This is very risky and only do it if this is something you might be interested in.
Basically if I were you I would diversify, diversify, diversify .. risky investments, not so risky, risk free (savings accounts).