We’re increasing the benefits you’ve built up in your Retirement Income Builder by 3.8%*
This increase will be applied from April, but the value of your pension will be updated in My USS typically in early May.
This is one of the benefits of your Retirement Income Builder (defined benefit) pension. Not only does it guarantee you an income when you retire, we increase the value of that income in line with inflation subject to certain caps.
We base the increase on official pensions which is linked to the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). We use CPI as it’s a measure of inflation based on the price of an average basket of shopping. When CPI increases, we increase your benefits.
When there’s negative inflation and CPI does not go up, we do not reduce your benefits, they just stay the same for that year.
For benefits built up before October 2011, we match any CPI inflation increase in full. For benefits built up after this date, we increase them up to a cap. The first 5% matches the CPI inflation increase, with half of the excess above 5% matched to a maximum of 10%.
*Subject to the Pension Increase (Review) Order being passed through Parliament (this typically takes place in March).
Published: 3 March 2026