Employer Pension Contributions UK on grant/fellowship

Question

I've won a postdoc fellowship to work at a UK university (which is funded by a billionaire externally) and as part of the budget, my salary (I simply costed myself on a spine point) implicity includes the employer pension contribution. Understandably the university pockets the overheads - but if I choose to opt out of the pension, am I not entitled to the employer pension contribution also? After all, I'm bringing in the money. Or will I only get the employee contribution back (which I would otherwise have to pay for out of my salary) and the university takes the employer contributions as profit?

Answer 1

This is probably unanswerable without seeing the specific agreement between your university and the donor.

However, in general, the answer is "no". For most granting agencies, the university is the one actually awarded the grant, and what they claim is the actual costs incurred by the work.

So if you don't want the pension contribution, the university just charges less to the grant, rather than charging the full amount and not spending some of it.

Depending on the scheme, this money may just go back to the funder, or can be used to extend the duration of the grant. But it's very rare for them to be used as salary supplements on pay scales*.

(* - An exception is some international schemes, such as the EU MSCA fellowships, which specify a total salary budget, rather than a pay scale, but given you mention spine points above I assume that's not the case for you.)