Report and Accounts

Report and Accounts 2026

Read our Report and Accounts and related documents for the year ended 31 March 2026

*The full report includes the Scheme financial statements and other regulatory statements comprising the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures Report summary, the Chair’s defined contribution statement, the Statement of Investment Principles and the Implementation statement.

**The Governance supplement also contains the Trustee Board’s Corporate Governance Statement for the financial year 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 and a “Section 172 statement” (which describes how the Trustee’s directors have had regard to their statutory duties to promote the success of the company (as set out in section 172(1) (a) to (f) of the Companies Act 2006)). The Section 172 statement is also included within the Strategic Report of USSL and USSIM’s Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2026.

Highlights of this year's report

Funding position

The funding position for the defined benefit (DB) part of USS improved by £5.7bn to an estimated surplus of £15.8bn at the end of March 2026.

£15.8bn
Defined benefit (Retirement Income Builder) estimated funding surplus based on monitoring of the 2023 valuation
£4.2bn
Defined contribution (Investment Builder) net investments, excluding legacy AVCs

Value for members

Delivering value for money is central to our work and we regularly benchmark ourselves against peers to understand how we are performing.

By managing 68% of our investments in-house at USS Investment Management Limited (USSIM), we provide an investment strategy designed to meet the Scheme's needs at significantly lower expense than just using external investment managers.

According to the latest independent analysis by CEM Benchmarking, our investment management costs in 2024 were the equivalent of £102m a year lower than the median global peer pension fund. Cumulatively over five years they were £485‌m lower.

Supporting members

The Pensions Operations team is on hand to support members every step of the way. The service they provide has seen them again achieve the Customer Service Excellence (CSE) accreditation, and on top of this, they also retained the Investors in People (IIP) Gold award.

CEM Benchmarking’s independent comparison of our member support services versus that of our peers scored us third highest overall out of 11, and top for active members.

What our employers and members say

We have continued to maintain very strong scores in our employer surveys — with 93% rating their relationship with USS as good or very good.

Perhaps most importantly of all, trust and how members rate their relationship with USS both continue to be at the highest levels we have seen since we started tracking them.

Report and Accounts