USS is not a final salary pension today: it is a hybrid, with a defined benefit part built up year by year and a savings pot for pay above a threshold.
If you are searching for a final salary pension at USS, the Universities Superannuation Scheme closed its final salary section on 31 March 2016. What members build now is a hybrid pension, part guaranteed income and part investment pot, so the answer depends on when you joined. Free help sits alongside your own scheme statement: GOV.UK says Pension Wise offers anyone over 50 a free appointment, but that it leaves out final salary and career average pensions, while MoneyHelper gives free, impartial information. To have USS looked at beside the rest of your retirement planning, the short call-back form here puts you in touch, at no cost, with an FCA-authorised adviser.
Is the USS pension final salary?
Not for anything built up since April 2016. According to USS, anyone who was a member before 1 October 2011 "built defined benefits (DB) through a Final Salary pension until 31 March 2016", and "Everyone started building their benefits in the Retirement Income Builder on 1 April 2016." The old section did not carry on. "The Final Salary scheme closed on 31 March 2016", and the benefits earned up to that date were worked out from service and salary at that date.
So the answer for a current member is both, in layers, or neither, depending on history. Someone who joined in 2020 has only ever built the newer kind. Someone who joined in 1998 and is still paying in has a final salary pension frozen at 2016 and a newer pension on top, and USS combines them at retirement. The sections below take each in turn.
What type of pension is USS now?
USS describes itself as a hybrid. In its words: "There’s the Retirement Income Builder, the defined benefit (DB) part, which gives you a guaranteed income in retirement. Then there’s the Investment Builder, the defined contribution (DC) part, which gives you a flexible savings pot for your future. Together, they make USS a hybrid pension."
| Retirement Income Builder | Investment Builder | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Defined benefit (DB) | Defined contribution (DC) |
| Who builds it | Every member who is paying in | Members earning above the salary threshold, making extra contributions or who have transferred a pension in since 2016 |
| Pay it is based on | Salary up to the threshold | Salary above the threshold, plus anything you add |
| What you get | An income for life and a tax-free (up to a limit) lump sum | A pot whose value goes up or down with investments |
The threshold is £74,208 for 2026/2027, according to USS's glossary; the benefits in the defined benefit part are based on salary up to it, and a member who earns more automatically starts paying into the Investment Builder as well. Below the threshold, a pot comes from the other two routes USS lists: extra contributions, or a pension transferred in since 2016. The sums that go in are covered in how much you pay into USS.
How the defined benefit part is built, and why it is not final salary
The Retirement Income Builder works year by year. USS says each year adds a block of pension at an accrual rate of 1/75 of your salary, counted only up to the salary threshold. Each block also earns a one-off lump sum worth three times that pension; how much of the lump sum is tax-free is capped, and the scheme tells you the cap when it sends your retirement quote.
What matters for the final salary question is that each block is tied to the salary of the year it is earned in, not to your pay on the day you retire. Our plain-words description of that is a career-average design; the name USS gives it is the Retirement Income Builder, its defined benefit part. A final salary scheme multiplies years of service by your salary at or near the end; a scheme like this adds up a slice of every year's pay.
The blocks do not stand still. USS says "What you build up will also go up in line with USS standard pension increases", linked to official pensions up to certain limits. Its revaluation page says these are applied each April, currently at a rate in line with the prior September-to-September rise in the Consumer Prices Index, and that "Benefits will not be reduced during periods of negative inflation." How the limits work, and what happens once the pension is in payment, is in whether the USS pension increases with inflation; turning all this into an estimated amount is the job of how much USS pension you will get.
If you joined before 2016: final salary and career revalued benefits
USS's page on benefits before April 2016 sets out two older types, and which one you have depends on your joining date.
- Joined before 1 October 2011: a Final Salary pension to 31 March 2016. USS's calculation is your pensionable service up to that date, divided by 80, multiplied by your final pensionable salary, plus a tax-free lump sum worth three times the yearly pension. "Final" is defined in a particular way: USS worked out your salary for each 12-month period over up to 13 years before retirement, and used the higher of the best revalued year among the last three before retiring or leaving and the best three-year average across that span, so it was not simply your last payslip.
- Joined from 1 October 2011 to 31 March 2016: a Career Revalued Benefits (CRB) pension. USS says "You would’ve built your pension up in chunks each year", worked out as salary earned in the year divided by 80, and "The pension you earn each year is revalued in line with our standard pension increases up to your date of retirement."
Both kinds are still in the scheme. USS's revaluation page states that the annual April increase applies to "any defined benefits you have built up, including any final salary or CRB benefits you built up before 1 April 2016". At retirement, USS says it will "combine your Final Salary and Retirement Income Builder benefits into an annual pension and a one-off, cash lump sum", and your Annual Member Statement sets out the different ways your own benefits were built. Someone who left USS and later rejoined may hold a mixture.
Because the split changes what the pension is worth, your statement is worth having to hand when you use the enquiry form below for a phone appointment; an FCA-authorised adviser rings you free of charge, and the call commits you to nothing.
What a hybrid USS pension means for you as a member
The two parts carry different kinds of risk, and keeping them apart is the most useful thing to take from the hybrid label.
The guaranteed part. USS says the Retirement Income Builder pays "an income for life", with the lump sum and the April increases described above. Its contribution rates are not fixed: the scheme currently shows members paying 6.1% of salary and employers 14.5%, and marks both as subject to the outcome of future valuations. What you pay into USS covers the current valuation. If you want to see how a guaranteed income compares with a pot in general, is a final salary pension better than a defined contribution one sets out the pros and cons, and what a final salary pension is explains the original design.
The savings pot. For pay above the threshold, USS puts a contribution equal to 20% of salary over it into the Investment Builder. That pot has no promised amount. In the scheme's words, "The value of your pot can go up or down, depending on how your investments perform", which means a member may get back less than went in. It also runs on its own timetable: "You don’t need to wait until you take your Retirement Income Builder benefits to access your Investment Builder pot". The ways of using it, and the tax rules that follow, are in how to claim your USS pension and when you can take it.
Age. The Retirement Income Builder is payable in full from Normal Pension Age, which USS gives as 66 and says will change in line with State Pension age increases. Taking it earlier normally reduces it because it is paid for longer; early retirement pension reductions covers the general principle.
Keeping a defined benefit pension and moving one
The regulators' general position on defined benefit pensions applies to the Retirement Income Builder and any pre-2016 benefits. The FCA notes that a defined benefit pension is sometimes called final salary, and says "The FCA and The Pensions Regulator (TPR) believe it’s in most people’s best interests to keep their DB pension. You can’t reverse a transfer, so you need to make sure you understand the risks so you can make an informed decision." Whether a transfer into or out of USS is possible, and what the rules are, belongs to can I transfer my USS pension. If a scam call or message urges you to move a pension, the FCA has guidance on pension scams.
What else you hold matters too, since USS is often one of several pensions over a working life. How to check whether a pension is final salary or defined contribution helps with the others, and a pension kept from an old job is described in deferred final salary pensions.
USS pension questions
Is USS a defined benefit or defined contribution pension?
Both. USS says "USS has both types, making us a hybrid pension scheme": the Retirement Income Builder is defined benefit and the Investment Builder is defined contribution.
Is the USS pension worth it?
That depends on your pay, how long you stay, what else you hold and what you need in retirement, so it has its own guide: is the USS pension good. The type of scheme matters to the answer, because a guaranteed income for life and an investment pot carry different risks.
Can I stay in the old final salary section?
No new final salary benefits have been built since 31 March 2016, when USS says that section closed. What you earned before then is kept, and increased each April, until you retire.
Does the USS pension differ between universities?
USS is one scheme rather than one per university, so moving between its employers does not start a separate pension: USS says that if you move between USS employers, "the benefits you build up in your new role will be automatically added to the ones you’ve already built up". Any extra contributions to the Investment Builder have to be set up again in My USS. Salary sacrifice is the part that depends on your employer, which may or may not offer it, so the scheme points you to your employer to find out.
How is my USS pension calculated?
For the guaranteed part, each year adds a block of 1/75 of salary up to the threshold, topped up by the April increases, plus any older benefits. For the working and an example, see how much USS pension you will get.
Is USS the same as the State Pension?
No. USS is a workplace scheme paid for by members and employers; the State Pension is paid by the government and has its own rules, covered in the UK State Pension guide.
Your next step
Knowing which type of pension you hold is the starting point; what to do with a mix of final salary history, career-style blocks and a savings pot is where it gets personal. Your Annual Member Statement shows the split, and MoneyHelper's information is free. To weigh this USS mix next to any other pension income and your State Pension entitlement, put your name and number into the page's call-back form; the FCA-authorised adviser who rings back will talk that mix through with you at no charge.
Sources: Universities Superannuation Scheme member pages (how your pension works, Retirement Income Builder, what you pay and what you'll get, glossary, your benefits before April 2016, how revaluation works, what your pension might look like, Investment Builder), read 21 October 2026; FCA, Pension transfers from defined benefit schemes; GOV.UK, Personal pensions: get help.