There are two parts to USS. The Retirement Income Builder is the defined benefit (DB) part, which provides a guaranteed income in retirement. The Investment Builder is the defined contribution (DC) part, which allows you to save more towards your future in your own savings pot invested in options you choose.
Both the DB and DC parts aim to meet the objectives set in our Statement(s) of Investment Principles and laid out in our investment balanced scorecards.
Those scorecards take a balanced view of investment performance against the backdrop of our investment objectives and the interests of our members and employers.
The scorecard covers six important categories that are assessed by our Investment Committee. This includes things like the returns on our investments, the way investment risk is managed, the value our in-house investment team adds, and delivery against our responsible investment ambitions.
The output of the scorecard is a rating on a scale of Very Good, Good, Average, Poor and Very Poor. To see the full scorecard, visit how we manage the funds.
Investment Balanced Scorecards are increasingly used by sophisticated asset owners to assess performance holistically, in contrast to approaches which focus on one objective at the expense of other, equally important, ones.
Lindsey Matthews, Chief Risk Officer, USSIM (CFA CIPM).
As at 31 March 2026, based on the 2023 valuation, the total value of the DB and DC parts of USS was £84.2bn up from £74.8bn in 2025.
It is worth stressing that our investment approach in the DB part of USS does not simply target the highest possible returns but seeks to balance delivering returns with protecting the pensions that are promised to members. We do this by aiming over time to maintain the strong funding position of the defined benefit (DB) part of USS by outperforming its liabilities (the cost of members’ future benefits) and meeting the expected returns of the Scheme, whilst keeping pace with comparable market portfolios. Over time we aim to do all three to ensure the Scheme has enough money to pay members’ guaranteed pensions long into the future and at an affordable cost.
The performance of the individual DB and DC parts of USS are addressed below.
Over the period, the value of the DB fund net assets increased to £79.8bn and the value of the Scheme’s liabilities increased by £1.1bn to £64bn.
Our proposed funding assumptions for the 2026 valuation for the DB part of USS, are currently subject to consultation. The funding position set out here is based on monitoring of the assumptions that we made for the 2023 valuation. As we set out in our news item, we had an estimated DB funding surplus of £16.9bn surplus (127% funded) compared to £7.4bn (111% funded at the 2023 valuation).
You can find an analysis of some of the metrics within the DB scorecard that contributed to this score on our investment performance page for the Retirement Income Builder.
As the graph above shows, as well as strong performance over one year, the DB part of USS has significantly outperformed the Liability Proxy (which keeps track with the estimated present value of the Scheme’s future pension liabilities) over 10, five and three years.
The Investment Committee awarded USSIM an overall score of between Average and Good for its investment performance across both the DB and DC investment balanced scorecards, which was on target.
The value of the DC assets increased from £3.5bn in March 2025 to £4.2bn in March 2026. In DC, while absolute performance was strong and significantly ahead of the long-term real return targets since inception, USS’s DC fund performance trailed some peers. DC fund performance was, however, stronger than peers on a risk-adjusted basis due to having less reliance on equities than peers.
You can find an analysis of some of the metrics within the DC scorecard that contributed to this score on our investment performance page for the Investment Builder.
See the performance of each fund within the Investment Builder below over one year and 5 years to 31 March 2026, against their respective long-term return target (LTRT) or benchmark.
| Investment Builder performance | 1 year | 5 year | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fund % | LTRT/Benchmark % | Fund % | LTRT/Benchmark % | |
| Growth Fund | 12.6 | 6.3 | 7.0 | 8.2 |
| Moderate Growth Fund | 9.7 | 5.3 | 5.3 | 7.2 |
| Cautious Growth Fund | 7.7 | 4.8 | 3.3 | 6.7 |
| UK Equity Fund | 19.2 | 18.5 | 9.7 | 9.7 |
| Global Equity Fund | 16.6 | 16.9 | 10.2 | 10.3 |
| Liquidity Fund | 4.3 | 4.2 | 3.4 | 3.3 |
| Emerging Markets Equity Fund | 29.2 | 26.8 | 4.8 | 4.6 |
| Bond Fund | 2.3 | 3.3 | 0.1 | 0.3 |
| Ethical Equity | 13.4 | 16.4 | 6.7 | 11.3 |
| Sharia Fund | 20.5 | 20.1 | 13.8 | 13.6 |
| Ethical Growth Fund | 11.5 | 6.3 | 5.0 | 8.2 |
| Ethical Moderate Growth Fund | 8.5 | 5.3 | 3.2 | 7.2 |
| Ethical Cautious Growth Fund | 6.6 | 4.8 | 1.9 | 6.7 |
| Ethical Liquidity | 4.3 | 4.2 | 3.4 | 3.3 |
You can find a more in-depth look at each fund and their performance in the Quarterly Investment Report for the Investment Builder.