Report and Accounts

Report and Accounts 2025

Read our Report and Accounts and related documents for the year ended 31 March 2025

*The full report includes the scheme financial statements and other regulatory statements comprising the Taskforce on Climate Related Disclosures report summary, the Chair’s defined contribution statement, the statement of investment principles and the implementation statement.

**The Governance supplement also contains the USS Board’s Corporate Governance Statement for the financial year 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 and a “Section 172 statement” (which describes how the trustee 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 Financial Statements for the year ended 31 March 2025.

Highlights of this year's report

50 years of helping members build a secure financial future

It was the 50th anniversary of USS this year and over the past 12 months some golden nuggets have helped us celebrate our Golden Anniversary, from the scheme being in a strong funding position, to initiatives to enhance the service and support we offer both members and employers.

We’ve seen a real improvement in how members rate their relationship with USS, while at the same time the number of people choosing to opt out of their pension is at its lowest recorded level.

Funding position

Despite volatility in the markets, in a year which was dominated by the US presidential election our funding position for defined benefit (DB) part of USS improved by £0.9bn to a surplus of £10.1bn by the end of March 2025.

£10.1bn
Defined benefit (Retirement Income Builder) funding surplus
£3.5bn
Defined contribution (Investment Builder) asset value

Value for members

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

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

According to the latest independent analysis by CEM Benchmarking, our investment management costs, in 2023, were the equivalent of £86m lower than the median global peer pension fund. Cumulatively over five years they were £440‌m lower.

Supporting members

The Pensions Operations & Service team is on hand to support members every step of the way. This year, the team delivered an excellent service to our members, achieving an 89% satisfaction score. The service they provide has seen them again achieve the Customer Service Excellence (CSE) accreditation, and on top of this, they also secured the Investors in People (IIP) Gold award.

CEM Benchmarking’s independent comparison of our member and employer support services versus that of our peers puts us in the top three of 11 overall, and top for active members.

When it comes to the online support we offer, we’ve provided this through a mix of personalised communications designed to help members at the point they need it, new and improved webinars to support decision making, and tools such as the Benefit Calculator to help members understand what they may get when they retire. As a result, we’ve seen record levels of engagement, with 45,000 members, on average, managing their pension using My USS every month, and more than 93,000 members using the Benefit Calculator over the last year.

In the future we are working towards moving to Procentia’s award winning administration platform which we anticipate will bring with it an expansive suite of innovative tools and significant levels of self-service and automation to support members.

What our employers and members say

We have continued to maintain very strong scores in our employer surveys – with 90% rating their relationship with USS as good or very good.

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

Report and Accounts