WTW’s 2025 Professional Trustee Survey, which surveyed 19 of the largest PT firms, shows that overall PT appointments grew by 8% in the past year to reach 2,711 across the industry. Growth in PT appointments slowed from the 11% annual growth seen the previous year and is expected to slow further to c.5% over the next three years.
Sole Trustee appointments saw similar growth (8%) to overall appointments in the past year, compared with 14% growth over the previous 12 months, with future expectations from the PT firms of c.6% over the next three years. Sole Trustees now make up around 50% of total PT appointments, mostly focused on small schemes, making up almost 70% of appointments to schemes with assets under £25m. At the other end of the market, 94% of PT appointments to large schemes with assets over £1bn have been to a Trustee Board, either as Trustee Chair (36%) or as a co-trustee (58%).
Mustafa Bharmal, director in WTW's Professional Trustee Group said: “The Professional Trustee market is still growing at a very healthy rate. Following a flurry of PT appointments over the past few years, rates of growth have started to stabilise as around half of all defined benefit pension schemes now have a Professional Trustee in place.”
Given the significant growth and change in the PT market over recent years, the Pensions Regulator has recently announced extended market oversight and engagement with PT firms.
Nausicaa Delfas, Chief Executive Officer at the Pensions Regulator, said: “We welcome the valuable insight and perspectives provided by this and other surveys in a fast-changing pensions market. Professional trusteeship has experienced huge growth over the last few years, bringing new risks and opportunities. We expect all new appointments to have followed a robust process, and to protect savers we have extended our market oversight approach to the 11 largest firms.”
The journey to settlement, or endgame planning, for defined benefit (DB) pension schemes is seen as a key driver of demand for Professional Trustees, with 89% of firms naming this as the most important priority that schemes have for appointing a PT. This becomes increasingly relevant as TPR’s recent annual funding statement estimated 54% of schemes are in surplus on a buyout basis. This also has an impact on the net growth in PT appointments as the increased number of full derisking buyouts in the past year drives higher rates of Professional Trustee appointment ‘exits’, as schemes transition away from a Trustee-board to an insurance company.
Transition to Sole Trustee
With many smaller schemes moving from a Trustee Board model to a Sole Trustee (often as they approach buy-in or buyout), knowledge transfer from the existing Board to a Sole Trustee model, and effective communication between the sponsor and the Board, are seen as the most important factors in a successful transition to Sole Trustee.
“Appointing Professional Trustees to prepare a scheme for settlement is becoming increasingly common, with smaller pension schemes sometimes moving to a Sole Trustee model as the scheme gets nearer to buyout,” said Bharmal. “However, Trustees warn that sudden cliff-edge transitions from a Board to a Sole Trustee are to be avoided due to the importance of knowledge transfer and communication between the sponsor, the outgoing Board and the incoming Sole Trustee.”
Diversity of roles
The range of roles for Professional Trustees is expanding from purely DB scheme appointments. Our survey found that 5% of PT appointments were to defined contribution (DC) own trusts. Professional Trustees have recently also been appointed in the Superfund market and the first Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) scheme.
Bharmal also commented: “Professional Trustee backgrounds are broadening, reflected in the range of professions that PT firms are recruiting from. These include HR, legal, general finance and business expertise, as well as a growing number of ‘career trustees’, in additional to traditional actuarial and consultancy backgrounds.”
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