Nearly half (44%) of trustees of defined benefit schemes with £1bn or more said scheme running costs had increased by more than 50% over the past year, while the average increase in running costs stands at 34%, a new report suggests.  

In the 2024 survey, costs had increased by 37% on average, meaning schemes are facing continued pressures.  

For schemes below £1bn in assets, just 7% of trustees had seen costs go up more than 50%, according to the second report from TPT Retirement Solutions' DB Trustee Pulse 2026, as large schemes appear to be seeing the steepest rises.  

Rising scheme costs are becoming a strategic challenge for trustee boards, believes TPT's head of client relations, Jonathan Jackaman. 

"Trustees are spending more on the building blocks of good governance, from legal support and administration to data and governance itself," Jackaman said. 

“For some trustee boards, consolidation can be one way to manage that complexity more efficiently, working to reduce duplication, improve cost certainty and provide access to specialist capabilities at scale. The aim is not simply to cut costs, but to ensure trustee time and scheme resources are focused where they can have the greatest impact on long-term strategy in order to improve outcomes and continue delivering for members.”  

One driver of costs are legal services, identified by 37% of trustees as the area seeing the largest absolute cost increase, followed by technology and data services, named by 34%.  

However, other factors also rank prominently, with TPT saying cost pressures are broad-based. Governance and administration services were each listed by 28% of trustees, while 27% pointed to projects like GMP equalisation and pensions dashboards, and a further 27% cited covenant services.