A pension is a long-term savings plan designed to provide you with an income in later life when you no longer work, or have started to reduce how much you work.
Queen Mary University of London offers three pension schemes to its eligible staff and workers, with eligibility to join a scheme being determined by your job role and/or grade of your post. If you are new to the University and meet the relevant criteria, you will be automatically enrolled in to the relevant pension scheme. Once enrolled, you will have the opportunity to ‘opt-out’ if you so wish. We must carry out the auto-enrolment process every three years so you may find that you are put back in the pension scheme at a later date. You have the choice of opting out each time this happens.
Both you and Queen Mary University of London will contribute to your pension to provide a generous level of pension in retirement along with immediate life cover, an inflation-proofed pension and long-term illness cover after the qualifying period has ended.
Your contribution will be deducted from your monthly salary and the amount you pay reduces the amount of tax you pay.
QMUL's contribution varies depending which scheme you are in but, on average, QMUL pays 2/3rds of the total contribution each month.
QMUL also operates a salary sacrifice scheme for pension contributions called PensionPlus. Salary sacrifice means that you exchange the amount of your monthly pension contributions for a lower salary instead. The same amount is still paid to the pension scheme, but this means you pay lower National Insurance contributions.
There are two main types of workplace pension. The first is called Defined Benefit. This type of pension allows you to build up a retirement income that is based on your salary when you leave the scheme and the length of time you pay in for. The pension you receive is based on a formula using both salary and length or service and this means that the pension you will receive can be predicted. Your pension is then usually increased by an inflation amount each year and is guaranteed to be paid until your death.
This type of scheme allows you to better plan for your retirement as you know how much you’ll have, but it doesn’t always give much flexibility in the way the pension is paid. You must take a pension income from this type of pension. You may be able to exchange some of it for cash but there are limits to how much you can exchange, and you can only do this at retirement. One of the pension scheme we operate, SAUL CARE, is an example of a Defined Benefit pension scheme.
Another type of pension is called Defined Contribution. In this type of scheme, you have an individual savings pot which contains your contributions along with those from QMUL. At retirement you draw your savings from this pot, which contains the contributions paid in along with any investment returns that have been earned by the scheme investing in stocks and shares.
In this type of scheme, you have more options around how you draw from it when you decide to retire. You can either draw the whole sum out as cash, or draw some cash and leave some invested. Or you can choose to buy a guaranteed income (also known as an annuity).
The pension scheme we operate for our Grade 4 or above and other eligible staff, USS, is a hybrid scheme that has some Defined Benefit and some Defined Contribution.
SAUL Pension Scheme
For Professional, Technical and Operational staff who are on Grades 1-3:
http://www.saul.org.uk
SAUL Trustee Company1 King's Arms YardLONDON, EC2R 7AF
020 7776 4340
SAUL Start Guide [PDF 526KB]
USS Pension Scheme
For Academic, Research, Professional, Technical and Operational staff who are on Grades 4 and above:
http://www.uss.co.uk
USS Limited3rd Floor Royal Liver BuildingLiverpool, L3 1PY
0845 068 1110 (local rate call charge number)
USS Guide [PDF 8,579KB]
NHS Scheme
For staff who have participated in the scheme in the preceding 12 months and part of QMUL's medical schools and institutes
http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/pensions
NHS Pension AgencyHesketh House200-220 BroadwayFleetwoodLancs, FY7 8LG
01253 774774