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Our principles and approach

Find out the reasons behind the investment decisions we make

Our way of doing things

Our main objective is to help provide you with a secure financial future. In order for us to do this, we have a legal requirement to have a Statement of Investment Principles (SIP). The latest SIP was approved by the trustee in May 2024, following a consultation with sponsoring employers.

We also have a supplementary Statement of Investment Principles specifically for the USS Default Lifestyle Option in the Investment Builder.

Our in-house investment management team look after the Retirement Income Builder. They’re in charge of making sure that we invest in diverse assets to help us meet our investment objectives, which are assessed using the investment balanced scorecard. To find out more about our investment objectives and the investment balanced scorecard, see Measuring success under how we manage the funds.

The team manage the Investment Builder funds in the same way, but they have a range of external managers who’ve been carefully selected to take care of them.

For more information about how we do things, take a look at our summary of Investment Beliefs.

Investing responsibly

It’s important for us to consider the potential financial impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors when we make our investment decisions. That’s why we have one of the largest Responsible Investment teams of any UK pension scheme and like to ensure the highest level of corporate governance.

Find out more about Responsible Investment.

Managing investment risk

The amount of investment risk we take needs to be well-balanced with the amount of financial support we have from our sponsoring employers.

It’s essential that we’re able to manage this risk effectively so that we’re able to protect the benefits and savings you’ve built up.

The investment strategy for the DB section aims to achieve an appropriate balance between generating returns and managing risks, while maintaining consistency with the DB section’s Integrated Risk Management Framework (IRMF) and the trustee’s risk appetite. This balance between returns and risk is reviewed in detail at each triennial actuarial valuation and regularly monitored by the trustee’s Investment Committee. You can read more about our Valuation Investment Strategy here.

We also have a Statement of Investment Principles (SIP) and keep a close eye on investment performance.

Want to know more about the terms we use above? Head to our investment glossary to find out more.

MiFID II - Annual Best Execution Disclosures

MiFID II requires investment firms who execute client orders to summarise and make public on an annual basis, for each class of financial instruments the top five brokers and execution venues in terms of trading volumes where they executed client orders in the preceding year and information on the quality of execution obtained.

Tax Strategy