Marvin OnumonuSole trustees make up almost half of all professional trustee appointments to defined benefit (DB) pension schemes, according to Hymans Robertson.
Its latest report showed that by March 2025, 42% of professional trustee appointments were sole trustees, up from 37% in 2024.
The research found that most sole trustee appointments were for smaller schemes, with 40% for those with fewer than 100 members, and 75% for those with less than 500 members.
Around 20% of schemes had a professional trustee acting as a sole trustee.
The number of sole trustee appointments rose by 13% over the year, but the number of schemes without a professional trustee stayed about the same.
This was due to an increase in schemes winding up and a drop in the number of professional trustees acting as co-trustees.
Appointments as co-trustee fell from 32% in 2023 to just under 25% in 2025.
Shani McKenzie, head of sole trustee services at Hymans Robertson, said: “This year we have seen the growth in sole trustee appointments return to double digits.
“That’s a trend we’d believe will continue for at least another few years as firms and market capacity continues to grow.”
McKenzie added: “We still expect board governance reviews to result in a variety of roles being met by professional trustees but with sole trusteeship continuing to dominate.
“Some schemes may choose to appoint a professional trustee as a co-trustee or, the Chair of Trustees depending on how the needs of pension scheme boards evolve.
“As schemes wind up and the DB universe continues to contract, it will take notable overall growth in professional trustee appointments to see a material decrease in the proportion of schemes without a professional trustee.
“That’s not something we’ve observed in the last year, as most of the growth in sole trustee appointments has been fuelled by the conversion of trustee board appointments.”
The report reviewed governance structures at eight of the largest sole trustee providers.
Hymans Robertson found professional trustees had welcomed The Pensions Regulator’s engagement programme, which focused on open regulatory dialogue.
Most sole trustee firms had governance processes and controls in place to comply with the voluntary code of practice set by the Association of Professional Pensions Trustees.
She said: “Sole trustee providers are clearly using a range of internal governance structures to oversee the management of the thousands of schemes they govern with the size of the scheme often driving what’s proportionate.
“Much like trustee boards, the governance arrangements needed for the handful of complex schemes with 10,000 or more members may differ from the governance needed for the 40% of schemes with less than 100 members.
“When it comes to how sole trustee providers structure their teams, our report shows that larger firms tend to take one of three approaches to constructing their delivery teams.”
She added: “We saw a few key differences. Firstly, in how support teams are used, then how governance and secretarial work is separated from trusteeship and also how specialists or in-house advisers are deployed.
“What was largely preferable across firms was to have one relationship lead for the employer, as relationships are personal but broadly the form of engagement with the employers was similar to how trustee boards would operate.
“In terms of in-house governance approaches of the sole trustee providers we’ve observed two key areas of difference, relating to the breadth of the head of sole trustee’s role and the level of oversight on individual schemes.
“As sole trustee portfolios have grown, a few firms have noted the need to review and refine their oversight functions to support a larger number of appointments.”
