The University cannot provide financial advice to members of staff; therefore, if you are planning to retire within the next 12 months, we would encourage you to seek independent financial advice before making any final decisions about retirement.
It is particularly important to understand the implications if you are thinking about leaving USS (eg by retiring or moving to a non-USS employer). If you are in this position and have taken advice from a financial advisor, please make sure they are aware of USS ‘Rule 10’ (you can point them to the ‘Revaluation and pension increases’ section of USS’s Guide for financial advisors).
The rule change specifies how annual pension increases are calculated if a USS member leaves the scheme on a date other than 31 March. Rule 10 now states that the annual inflation-linked increase to a pension’s value in the year that a member leaves the scheme will use the preceding year’s inflation rate.
This may influence the expected value of your pension if you leave the scheme in a year when inflation (indexed by CPI) is increasing. As an example, the value of your pension could be significantly different if you retired on 30 March 2026 (the September 2024 inflation rate (1.7%) would be applied) compared to the 31 March 2026 (the September 2025 inflation rate (forecast by the Bank of England to be 4%) would be applied. The reverse is true that in a falling inflation environment then people would benefit.
Full details of this rule change can be found on page 80 of the USS Scheme Rules.