We’re increasing your Retirement Income Builder benefits by 3.8%* this April
We all feel the pinch when prices go up, but we try to protect the value of your Retirement Income Builder benefits (your defined benefits) by applying an annual pension increase, linked to the level of inflation.
We do not just do this while you’re building benefits, we also do it when you’re retired too, helping to ensure that the guaranteed income you get will maintain its buying power as far as possible.
This year we’ll increase the value of your defined benefits by 3.8%.
This increase will be applied from April, but the value of your pension will be updated in My USS in early May.
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