Final Earnings

Pension benefits paid from the UKAEA final salary schemes are calculated using your highest twelve months pensionable earnings during the last three years of your service which counts towards your pension.

Pensionable earnings are those parts of your salary on which you pay pension contributions to the UKAEA final salary scheme. For example, you do not pay pension contributions on overtime payments and these payment are not included in your pensionable earnings to calculate your pension.

You may receive certain allowances from your employer, which will be considered as pensionable. Any such allowances you receive in the last three years of pension scheme service will be taken into account when assessing your final earnings, but remember it is the best twelve months in the last three years of service which will be used to calculate your pension.

For some members, for the pension based on service before 1 April 1997, we will use 93.5% of their final earnings. Members who are affected in this was are those who were members of the Principal Non Industrial Superannuation scheme between 1 April 1973 (1 October 1978 where the employer is British Nuclear Fuels plc). For service from April 1997 we will use the full value of final earnings to calculate your benefit. See the attached calculation example.

[Please note that the above basis for calculating the percentage of final earnings is expressed in general terms and to confirm your own final earnings details prior to 1 April 1997 you should access your own UKAEA pension scheme record by using the view my pension button at the top right hand side of the coloured banner]