TPT Ranks Third in 10-Year DC Performance Table as Scale Debate Intensifies

New independent performance data covering the past decade of defined contribution default funds has revealed a striking disparity in outcomes, and one mid-sized master trust has emerged near the very top of the rankings.

Corporate Adviser has published 10-year performance figures for DC master trust default funds using CAPAdata, its independently compiled dataset. The results cover the period to December 2025. The top-performing fund returned 232% over the decade. The lowest managed just 88%. TPT Retirement Solutions ranked third in the table, a result its DC Director says should prompt a broader rethink about how the industry defines quality.

The Scale Assumption Under Scrutiny

The findings arrive at a moment of intense political and regulatory pressure on pension schemes to consolidate. The government has made no secret of its preference for larger funds, with the Pension Schemes Bill introducing thresholds designed to push assets towards so-called megafunds.

But TPT's Philip Smith, DC Director, argues that the performance data exposes a flaw in that logic.

"For a long time, scale and low cost have carried a built-in assumption of safety. Big feels credible. Cheap feels efficient. Both are easy to defend. But member outcomes are what matter, and outcomes like these are a reminder that size and price do not, on their own, define value."

What the Numbers Actually Show

A gap of 144 percentage points between the best and worst-performing default funds over ten years is not a rounding error. For a saver contributing steadily across that period, the difference in retirement pot size would be material — potentially tens of thousands of pounds.

Smith suggests the factors that drive those outcomes are harder to reduce to a single metric: investment strategy quality, governance discipline, and the ability to execute consistently over a long time horizon.

Lessons From Abroad

The UK is not alone in grappling with this question. Australia has been running a similar debate around fund consolidation, and research from the Conexus Institute points to a nuanced conclusion: both large and small funds can succeed, provided they are well-designed. Pursuing scale for its own sake, the research warns, is a strategy without a guarantee.

That international context matters as UK policymakers push forward with consolidation measures. The evidence suggests that the critical question is not the size of a scheme, but the quality of its decision-making and the outcomes it actually delivers for members.

A Challenge to the Status Quo

TPT's placement in the CAPAdata rankings is significant precisely because scale has become shorthand for credibility in DC pensions. If smaller, more focused master trusts are consistently outperforming larger rivals on the metric that matters most — long-term member returns — that is a challenge to the prevailing narrative that consolidation is inherently in members' interests.

Smith puts it plainly: scale is not a strategy. Outcomes are.

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