Understanding the evolving UK Professional Trustee landscape
Over the past decade, trustee boards of UK pension schemes have been reshaped with the presence of Professional Trustees now becoming the norm. We have also seen significant growth in the use of Professional Corporate Sole Trustee ("Sole Trustee"), particularly amongst smaller schemes. This is where a single Professional Trustee firm takes the place of a traditional trustee board to manage the scheme, albeit with at least two accredited Professional Trustees from the firm involved. These trends have been accelerating in recent years, especially with the focus on buyout and settlement for many schemes.
Nevertheless, our most recent survey (2025 Professional Trustee Firm Survey) suggests growth has now started to slow. The growth in the total number of appointments fell from 11.5% to 7.7%, with market participants typically expecting growth to slow further across the next three years.
| 2023 | 2024 | Expected 2025-27 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Professional Trustee appointments | 11.5% | 7.7% | 5.3% |
| Professional Trustee appointments (excluding Sole Trustee) | 9.1% | 7.7% | 4.8% |
| Sole Trustee appointments | 14.2% | 7.8% | 5.9% |
Note: Expected annual growth refers to median
This moderation suggests a still expanding but maturing market over the next three years. Already, more than half of schemes in the UK have at least one Professional Trustee sitting on the trustee board and this share is expected to continue to rise.
Part of this slowdown in growth can be attributed to the successful windup of schemes. Given the Pensions Regulator's (TPR) annual funding statement shows 54% of schemes are fully funded on a buyout basis, this trend could continue. As we can see (Figure 2a) a key driver for appointing a Professional Trustee is to help schemes prepare for settlement. Success here could actually imply a higher growth rate in appointments than the growth statistics suggest (as schemes windup and no longer need Professional Trustee firm services).
Particularly rapid growth was seen amongst Sole Trustee appointments for 2023 but less so for 2024. This growth is expected to cool further in the next three years. Partly the story is that the use of Sole Trustees has expanded quickly amongst smaller schemes, where the specialist skills of Professional Trustees and addressing difficulties finding trustees are particularly beneficial. However, they are still rare amongst the largest schemes
While the rate of growth has slowed, the scope of services on offer by Professional Trustee firms is arguably growing. There is a range of appointments outside typical Defined Benefit board trustee roles, with some 8% of appointments supporting Defined Contribution arrangements (own trust, Master Trust or Independent Governance Committees). We have also seen the first appointments to superfunds and collective defined contribution (CDC) schemes.
Most firms offer scheme secretarial (16 of 19 firms) and governance services (14 in 19 firms). Additionally, a number of firms offer extended services, for example: DB endgame services, member communications and investment oversight.
With continued growth in the demand for Professional Trustee appointments and a wider range of services on offer, Professional Trustee firms are shifting their operational priorities to support greater activity, with more support staff and a greater focus on technology and standardisation.
The workforce of firms is still growing rapidly (16% in 2024, 18% in 2023), but 2024 saw the number of Professional Trustees grow only moderately (4%). However, growing this number remains firms' foremost staffing priority, as it was last year.
By contrast, 2024 saw a significant expansion in the number of management and support staff (with almost half of all staff now employed among Professional Trustee firms fulfilling such a role). However, only a minority of firms still have it as a priority to increase the size of their internal support staff (21%).
Alongside the increased prevalence of support staff, particularly amongst Sole Trustee appointments, we see a focus on increasing standardisation of governance policies and processes to ensure consistency and efficiency, complemented by greater use of technology (Figure 3).
With the growth of Sole Trustees, ensuring an effective transition from a traditional trustee board to a Sole Trustee is a critical process that requires careful planning and execution. Our survey sought to establish the key factors for making the transition a success (Figure 4).
Knowledge transfer from the existing trustee board is crucial for a successful transition. This is sometimes a challenge where there are strained relations between the existing board and the Sole Trustee. A key factor in preventing this is effective communication from the sponsor to the existing board, explaining the strategy and rationale for the move and reassuring members of the effectiveness of the new arrangements.
Finally, ongoing member engagement is the third factor in producing a successful transition. This means continuing to communicate with the membership during the transition, to address potential concerns and misunderstandings.
In November 2024, TPR had signalled that a greater focus on trusteeship was a key priority. Our survey showed that most Professional Trustee firms expected this to mean greater oversight of the Professional Trustee market. 58% reported new guidance from the Regulator was probable, 16% thought it would definitely occur.
In their report 'Market oversight: Professional trusteeship' published on 2 April 2025, TPR confirmed it would be targeting engagement with Professional Trustee firms this year to "foster a culture of open regulatory dialogue". This move reflects the growth and systemic importance of Professional Trustees to the operation of pensions schemes in the UK.
The Professional Trustee firms that took part in our survey anticipate that this oversight will lead to:
Alongside an expectation of higher standards, most firms hoped any changes in expectations would be proportionate, to ensure schemes which are lower risk wouldn't see a significantly expanded regulatory burden.
A general focus on the importance of trusteeship by TPR was also expected to lead to continued growth in the number of schemes with Professional Trustees on boards, especially for those schemes who haven't had one before. A desire for TPR to provide more guidance on conflicts of interest was also evident, particularly in relation to areas such as the additional services provided by Professional Trustee firms and the way in which Professional Trustees are selected and appointed.
The market for Professional Trustee services continues to go through significant change. The last two years have seen multiple mergers, new market entrants and the services on offer continuing to expand.
WTW has significant experience supporting the selection and appointment of a Professional Trustee or Sole Trustee through our robust and independent process.
We would like to thank the firms that participated in the survey for their time in responding to the survey.
To discuss the support we can provide, or to gain more detailed insights into the Professional Trustee market, please contact one of the below, or your WTW Consultant.
