USS pension - should I join?

[TheHeartGoesLast]

I work in professional services in HE. I recently got a promotion to a more senior role and have been offered the chance to join USS. I am currently with SAUL.

All I hear about is issues with USS, so intended to stay with SAUL. However, I have to sign a serious looking form saying I can't join at a later date - this is my one chance. Am I missing something?

USS is over 9% rather than 6% contribution from me, other than that I see no benefits.

what about the employer contributions?

You can add previous smaller pensions, which you can't with SAUL (I forget the correct terminology).

It's a good pension scheme. I contributed 13.5% altogether as I'm saving in their investment builder.

I think the bad things you've been hearing are in relation to recent changes but I'm still pretty sure it's better than SAUL. Or have you heard otherwise? Interested to know!

Irrelevant for a DB scheme.

You need to check the respective benefits of both bearing in mind you'd be on career average for USS by joining now. Not sure what SAUL is.

SAUL's investments have apparently performed significantly better than USS's in recent years (see tweets by Mike Otsuka: twitter.com/MikeOtsuka/status/1374996709865099271), so presumably SAUL members are less likely to be subject to contribution increases and/or benefit reductions.

Not sure that necessarily follows - there's a lot of politicising of USS regardless of how the fund performs. Though I get your point that a well managed fund in theory shouldn't need increased conts.