SAUL Start is available for staff in the professional, technical, operational and learning job families, grade 3b and below who joined from 1 April 2023. Imperial automatically enters all eligible staff into a pension scheme, as required by law. SAUL Start members build up a pension pot which you take as income or a cash lump sum on retirement. SAUL Start is a Defined Contribution pension scheme with employee and employer contributions invested to help it grow. The SAUL Trustee has chosen a default investment option but you can choose a different fund from an available range.

Members join the scheme for three years and then transfer to SAUL Care where you will build up a pension based on your salary.

More information

The SAUL Start pension scheme is administered by Legal and General. See their website for more information Legal & General - SAUL.

Eligibility

SAUL Care is for staff in Professional, Technical, Operational, and Learning grades, Level 3b and below, and Assistant Teaching Fellow and Teaching Fellow grades who joined from 1 April 2023. Imperial automatically enters all eligible staff into a pension scheme, as required by law.

The scheme and what you will get

Being a SAUL Start member means you'll get:

• a pension and a tax-free lump sum when you retire
• your pension pot as a tax-free lump sum if you're too ill to work (certain conditions apply)
• a flexible pension - you can take your pension pot with you if you change employment
• Your beneficiaries will get a tax-free lump sum of eight times your salary plus the value of your pension pot if you die

You can find out more about retirement options in the Retiring from SAUL section of the SAUL website.

You can find out how your pension is calculated on the How do you work out my pension section of the SAUL website.

Contributions and how much it costs

You pay 6% of your salary into SAUL Start.

The money you pay in is taken from your annual salary plus any permanent allowances (for example, London weighting or responsibility allowance) and overtime. Bonuses and commissions are not included.

Imperial pays towards your pension too. We will pay contributions of 15% of your salary plus an extra 1% of your salary to help cover the costs of running the plan and of paying death-in-service benefits.

Investing your pension savings

When you join SAUL Start, your savings will be invested in the default investment option.

If you would like to make your own investment decisions, you can find more information about the choices available to you on Legal & General’s website.

Opting out

If you do not wish to become a member of SAUL and build up an income to use in retirement, please download an opt-out form (SAUL Start Opt out form).

If you become a member of SAUL but then decide to opt-out, you are only able to receive a refund of your contributions within the first 30 days of joining the scheme. You will receive a welcome communication directly from Legal & General with the last date by which you can opt-out to receive a refund, you will need to contact Legal & General directly to opt out: Legal & General - This isn't for me.