Member webinar

You can see the benefits you’ve already build up on your Annual Member Statement, or in My USS.

For a projection of your benefits or to see how retiring earlier or later than your normal retirement date might affect your benefits, log in to the Benefit Illustrator, with your USS member number and National Insurance number. Your USS member number can be found on your Annual Member Statement or other correspondence received from USS. Your employer should also be able to provide your USS member number or you can call the USS Member Service Team on 0333 300 1043 who will be able to provide it.

If you have not received your statement or haven’t been able to find out what your USS member number is using the other methods set out above, you can still use the Benefit Illustrator non-login version and manually input your pension information to see a projection of your benefits at retirement age. To request up to date pension information, please use the contact us form.

The Normal Pension Age (NPA) in USS for both men and women aligns with the State Pension age – which changed to 66 on 6 October 2020.

Check out your options at different ages and stages for more information relating to early or late retirement either before or after Normal Pension Age and the other options you have when it comes to accessing your benefits.

If you’re thinking of retiring to the other side of the world, we’ll still be able to pay your pension. Take a look at the working or retiring overseas page to find out everything you need to know about how this could affect your pension.

No, it’s not too late. You can choose to make additional contributions as a one-off lump sum payment or as a monthly payment to the Investment Builder in My USS.

Find out more about your options if you can’t work anymore on our ill health retirement page.

Once you retire, you’ll receive from the Retirement Income Builder:

• a regular income for life based on what you’ve built up in the Retirement Income Builder; plus

• a one-off, tax-free cash lump sum of three times your pension amount.

You can choose to have a higher monthly income and a lower cash lump sum – or vice versa. But there’s a limit on the amount of benefits you can take as tax-free cash. We’ll tell you this when we send you your retirement quote. To see how taking more or less tax-free cash might affect you, use our Benefit Conversion Tool.

You may use some of your Investment Builder savings to increase your monthly retirement income from the Retirement Income Builder. But once you retire, you can’t convert any amount you’ve chosen to leave in the Investment Builder into Retirement Income Builder benefits.

Take a look at Using your Investment Builder pot for your Investment Builder options.

You can manage your additional contributions to the Investment Builder in My USS, where you can stop any payments you're making or change the amount you're paying.

You can start making additional contributions to the Investment Builder through My USS. You can choose to make a one-off payment, or monthly contributions as a percentage of your salary.

If you go over your Annual Allowance (AA), you may be able to use Scheme Pays to use what you’ve built in your pension savings to pay the tax charge (depending on the amount of the tax charge). Visit our Scheme Pays page for more information on how it works.

Yes, the modeller has been updated to reflect the increase in the State Pension age.

When you retire, you can choose to have a higher monthly income and a lower cash lump sum – or vice versa. But there’s a limit on the amount of benefits you can take as tax-free cash. We’ll tell you this when we send you your retirement quote. To see how taking more or less tax-free cash might affect you, use our Benefit Conversion Tool.

You may use some of your Investment Builder savings to increase your monthly retirement income from the Retirement Income Builder. But once you have retired, you can’t convert any amount you’ve chosen to leave in the Investment Builder into Retirement Income Builder benefits.

If you have pension savings elsewhere that you haven’t started taking and the scheme is registered with HMRC, you could transfer the pension benefits to the Investment Builder from most pension schemes. Find out more on our transferring in to USS page.

The benefits you’ve built up so far in the Retirement Income Builder will always belong to you. And they’ll carry on going up with inflation which means the value is protected.

When you come to take your benefits they’ll be based on different things, depending on your qualifying service. This means the amount of time you were building your pension with us – plus any time you were paying in to another pension (not including a personal pension) that you transferred to us.

If you have savings in the Investment Builder, these will remain invested until you decide to take them.

You can find out more about what happens with your benefits and savings on the your pension after leaving page.

No, there are currently no ways of paying additional contributions to the Retirement Income Builder.

If you’re moving overseas, you can ask your new scheme whether you can transfer your USS pension over to them.

We won’t transfer to an overseas scheme unless it’s a Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (ROPS). So we’ll check this before completing the transfer. You can also check this for yourself using the Recognised Overseas Pension Schemes notification list.

If your new scheme doesn’t meet certain conditions, you may be charged an Overseas Transfer Charge (OTC). It’s a 25% tax charge taken from your transfer. Even if you don’t need to pay this right away, you may need to pay it later if circumstances change within five years.

For more information on moving overseas, see our Working or retiring overseas factsheet.

View our Overview of USS video to help you get to grips with your pension.

If your new job is in a workplace that doesn’t offer a USS pension, you’ll stop building your pension with us. See our thinking of leaving page for more information on this.

In some cases (like a secondment), you may be able to carry on building your USS pension. Please speak to your employer for more details about this.

You can speak to your employer’s pension contact about your USS pension, but there is also information online about several things that you can do with your pension. You can choose to make additional contributions to the Investment Builder in My USS.

There could be a number of reasons why you’re absent from work for a period of time. You could be away voluntarily, having a baby, seconded to another role where you can’t build a USS pension or you may need to be off work for reasons out of your control, like if you’re unwell. View our absence from work page for more information on how this could affect your pension.

The benefits that you earn in the Retirement Income Builder are based on your salary up to the salary threshold which for 2021/2022 is £59,883.65. If you earn over the salary threshold you’ll automatically start paying in to the Investment Builder. You can also choose to pay additional voluntary contributions to the Investment Builder as a one-off lump sum from time to time, or as a regular monthly payment.

Additional contributions can be a one-off lump sum from time to time, or they can be a regular monthly payment. You can choose which type to pay in My USS.

There are some different options available to you, including a refund of your contributions subject to whether you contribute via a salary sacrifice arrangement with your employer. Find out more on our leaving or already left pages.

A beneficiary doesn’t always have to be a person, it could even be a charity or any other organisation capable of receiving the money.

All you have to do is complete an Expression of Wish form or a Registration of potential dependant form to let us know who you’d like to receive your benefits if you die. It doesn’t always have to be a person, it could even be a charity or any other organisation capable of receiving the money.

We recommend that you update theses every three years so we know they’re up to date, even if your wishes haven’t changed.

Log in to My USS to complete these online or download the Expression of Wish form or Registration of potential dependant form to print and return to us.

As long as you’re paying in to USS, you get life cover to help take care of your loved ones once you’re gone. They may be able to get a lump sum of three times your salary – and a pension too.

If you’ve stopped paying in to USS or are already retired, your loved ones may still be eligible to the benefits that you’ve built up. The pension they may be entitled to won't be enhanced and their lump sum will be based on three times the pension you'd built up, rather than three times your salary.

To find out more, take a look at the factsheet that’s most relevant to you:

• What happens to my benefits and savings if I die whilst paying in to USS?
• What happens to my benefits and savings if I die after I've left USS?
• What happens to my benefits and savings if I die after I've retired?

Nominating a beneficiary has no bearing on the contributions you pay as the life cover is a standard inclusion of your benefits . All you have to do is complete an Expression of Wish form or a Registration of potential dependant form to let us know who you’d like to receive your benefits if you die.

If you’ve stopped paying in to USS or are already retired, your loved ones may still be eligible to the benefits that you’ve built up.

Read more on our what happens when you die page.

If you’ve stopped paying in to USS or are already retired, your loved ones may still be eligible to the benefits that you’ve built up.

Read more on our what happens when you die page.

If you’ve stopped paying in to USS or are already retired, your loved ones may still be eligible to the benefits that you’ve built up.

Read more on our what happens when you die page.

There could be a number of reasons why you’re absent from work for a period of time. You could be away voluntarily, having a baby, seconded to another role where you can’t build a USS pension or you may need to be off work for reasons out of your control, like if you’re unwell.

Depending on why you’re absent, you may be able to carry on building a pension with us. If you stop making contributions while you’re off, your membership will be suspended until you start contributing again.

If your membership is suspended but you want your life cover to continue, you’ll need to speak to your employer.

To understand all your options, see the Absence from work factsheet.

When you retire, your Retirement Income Builder pension, the defined benefit part of USS, provides you with a regular payment each month, which will add up over each year to the annual income. You are also entitled to a lump sum, only once when you retire, of three times that annual income.

The benefits you’ve built up so far in the Retirement Income Builder will always belong to you. And they’ll carry on going up with inflation which means the value is protected.

When you come to take your benefits they’ll be based on different things, depending on your qualifying service. This means the amount of time you were building your pension with us – plus any time you were paying in to another pension (not including a personal pension) that you transferred to us.

If you have savings in the Investment Builder, these will remain invested until you decide to take them.

You can find out more on the your pension after leaving page.

The Fund Factsheets produced on a quarterly basis show how the individual funds in the Investment Builder are performing and can help you decide where you want to invest your savings. You can find them in My USS.

When you start saving for your future, it’s likely that lots of things will change in your life before retiring. Have a look at the life events page to understand how these changes could affect your pension and your savings for the future and see what actions you may need to take.

Your pension will be reviewed each April in line with our standard pension increases.

Any increases are linked to increases in official pensions paid to public sector employees (like teachers, civil servants or NHS employees). We’ll match the full increases for any USS benefits you earned before October 2011. For any benefits earned after that date we match these increases for the first 5% and pay 50% of any increase over 5%, up to a maximum increase of 10%.

So, if official pensions increased by 3%, we would increase your pension by 3%. If they increased by 7%, we would increase your pre-October 2011 pension by 7% and post-October 2011 pension by 6%.

During any periods of deflation, or negative inflation, we won’t reduce the value of your pension, but it won’t increase.

The benefits listed in your Annual Member Statement are the benefits you have built up to date. They are not a projection of what you may have when you retire. You can use the Benefit Illustrator to estimate this amount at you chosen retirement age.

The USS Normal Pension Age for men and women increases in line with the State Pension age. From October 2020, this was increased to 66. You can choose to retire before or after Normal Pension Age – see your options on the your options at different ages and stages page.