Five key ingredients that make Standard Life's Master Trust a multi-award winner

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This year, we’ve become the first provider ever to win Master Trust of the Year at all three of the UK’s most prestigious awards. So what makes Standard Life’s Master Trust stand out from the crowd? Donna Walsh, Head of Master Trust, explores the reasons why.

It’s been a busy year for us here at Standard Life, becoming the first provider ever to win Master Trust of the Year at the Pensions Age, UK Pensions, and Corporate Adviser awards.

Whilst it’s been a bumper year for awards, it’s certainly not a one-off; as of 2025, we’ve won Pensions Age’s Master Trust Offering of the Year more times than any other provider.

These awards are an amazing testament to our teams’ commitment to building a best-in-class Master Trust. But it’s absolutely not all about us. It’s about members. They’re at the heart of everything we do, and we’re continuously listening, learning, and innovating to ensure we’re creating solutions that meet their evolving and diverse needs.

Five reasons why we’re a multi-award winning Master Trust provider

Our dedication to members has consistently been called out by judges, with one highlighting that we’re “setting the standard in innovation, governance, and member outcomes”. But that’s not all; here are more reasons why our Master Trust is continuously recognised as a market leader:

1. We always remember the fundamentals 

Innovating is key to leading the charge. But we never forget the importance of having the fundamentals in place. 

That’s why we always focus on member experience, service levels, and good member returns:

• 94% of members say our online experience is excellent/good
• 92% of members who call us rate their experience as excellent/good
• Our Sustainable Multi Asset Growth Fund delivered a cumulative three-year gross return of 46.3% (to September 2025) within its default lifestyle profile – despite market volatility 

2. We support members’ holistic financial wellbeing

That’s why we go beyond pensions and provide a range of support to help members with their whole financial world, including: 

• Good Money Moods: A suite of employer tools and resources designed to improve members’ financial confidence, including webinars and communication campaigns
• Money Mindset*: An open finance tool that allows members to see all their finances in one place, set financial goals, and access bitesize financial education content
• Homebuyer Hub: An online coaching tool to help people save for their first home

3. We scale up, but do it safely

Our DC Master Trust has grown significantly over the past two years, more than doubling in size from £5bn at end of June 2023, to £10.7bn at end of June 2025.
 
With a strong pipeline of wins and new opportunities, we expect our Master Trust to continue to grow. But it’s crucial that we grow safely and sustainably. We want to protect the service and experience we provide to new and existing members and employers. We have dedicated administration teams measuring performance against strict service levels and are delighted with our average project promise score of 10/10 following new scheme implementations. 

4. We’re in every member’s corner

Protecting vulnerable customers

We’ve invested over £3m in our vulnerable customer programme, including a dashboard to track member needs, pioneering virtual reality training, and Helping Hand Champions trained to support members through difficult or traumatic moments. 

Providing a safe haven for fraud victims

In 2024, our Master Trust was chosen as a safe haven for around 7,000 people who lost their lifesavings to scammers, following an industry-wide market review. Our vulnerable customer programme and understanding of members’ needs were just a couple of reasons why we were selected.

Tackling big topics with barrier-breaking webinars

We run one of the industry’s largest retirement webinar programmes – 91% of attendees rate them good or excellent. In addition, we run webinars for members where a live panel of our Master Trust trustees are on hand to answer the questions that matter most to members. 99% of members tell us they find this useful.

We also run webinars that highlight some of the key barriers to saving for retirement, such as the gender pension gap and caring responsibilities. 90% of those who attend say they now have the tools to better manage their finances.

5. We continuously innovate

Innovating for members

We’ve sought to become one of the UK’s most inclusive pension providers, tailoring our products, tools, and services to meet members’ diverse needs, including:

• Our new Retirement Hub, which gives members one central space to access different tools and resources to help them feel ready for retirement
• Mixed Income Builder, an innovative tool that helps members understand how they can get the balance right between security and flexibility when taking their pension savings
• Standard Life Annuity Desk, where members can get personalised support and informed guidance on the annuity market
• Money Mindset* Rewards, which gives members access to a range of discounts that can help them make savings on their everyday spending
• Five new self-select funds, including ethical and ESG options
• Support for buying a Shariah-compliant home, available via our Homebuyer Hub

Innovating for employers 

We gave our groundbreaking Client Analytics tool a makeover, which allows employers to see where members are predicted to fall within Pensions UK’s Retirement Living Standards. Now, the tool turns insight into action by highlighting areas requiring attention, and providing downloadable campaigns to tackle these. 

In 2024, we became the first Master Trust to enable employers to use their Defined Benefit (DB) surplus to fund future Defined Contribution (DC) contributions without incurring substantial tax bills, giving them greater flexibility. 

Innovating in the industry

In 2024, we welcomed the first 12 trainees into our pioneering Trustee Accelerator Programme, developed with the Pensions Management Institute. Our programme is designed to introduce fresh ideas and perspectives to trusteeship, by enabling people with diverse experiences or backgrounds, and/or with minimal or no pensions experience to become trustees.

A Master Trust provider for the future

We’re not a one-hit wonder – we’ve won these awards because we’re consistently delivering innovative and inclusive member solutions, whilst ensuring we get the fundamentals right. But we don’t do what we do to win awards. We do it because our teams at Standard Life care so much about doing what’s best for each and every member now, and in the future. 

Want to find out more about our Master Trust? Get in touch by contacting your usual Standard Life contact or by emailing: workplacenewbusiness@standardlife.com (please don't send sensitive information by email).

*Money Mindset is provided in partnership with Moneyhub Financial Technology Limited