![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251121_ukfunds_chart1.png\")
<\/p>\nActive funds delivered the best returns, but passives followed closely behind.<\/p>\n
Twenty four UK funds have delivered top-quartile returns over the past one, three, five and 10 years, Trustnet research has found.<\/p>\n
Consistent outperformance can be challenging, particularly when funds had to navigate difficult backdrops, with four different prime ministers in five years, a disastrous mini-Budget in 2022 and Brexit.<\/p>\n
But this has not stopped some UK funds from delivering for investors. As part of an ongoing Trustnet series, we examined which IA UK All Companies funds posted top-quartile returns over one, three, five and 10 years (the standard time frames used by investors).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source: FE Analytics. Performance to the end of October. Chart sorted by 10 year return.<\/p>\n
Topping the chart of consistent outperformers is an active fund \u2013 the Artemis SmartGARP UK Equity<\/a> fund.<\/p>\n Led by veteran stockpicker Philip Wolstencroft, the strategy targets companies that are attractively valued compared to their growth prospect, using financial and macroeconomic metrics.<\/p>\n Analysts at Rayner Spencer Mills Research (RSMR) said: \u201cThe strength of the approach is founded on not overpaying for growth and recognising when fundamentals of a company have been overlooked, suiting most market environments.\u201d<\/p>\n While this can make it a good choice as a core holding for investors, the \u201csignificant allocation\u201d to mid-caps (currently 30.5%) means it can also help diversify a more traditional UK portfolio, according to RSMR.<\/p>\n Performance of fund vs sector and benchmark over 10yr<\/strong><\/p>\n Source: FE Analytics<\/p>\n Its stablemate, the Artemis UK Select<\/a> fund, also appeared on the table. Led by FE fundinfo Alpha Manager Ed Leggett and Ambrose Faulks, it has posted top-quartile returns in six of the past 10 calendar years.<\/p>\n The fund experienced a particularly strong 2024, when it was the best-performing strategy in the sector, up 25.3%.<\/p>\n Performance of fund vs sector and benchmark over 10yr<\/strong><\/p>\n Source: FE Analytics<\/p>\n The strategy invests in 40 to 60 UK companies across the market cap spectrum, with the ability to short up to 10% of its allocation to generate additional returns.<\/p>\n Currently, it has a significant weighting to financials (41.2%), an overweight of 13 percentage points versus the FTSE All Share. Banks such as Standard Chartered, Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest and HSBC all appear in its top 10.<\/p>\n Ninety One UK Special Situations<\/a> took the crown as the top performer in the past three years, while maintaining first-quartile returns over one, five and 10 years.<\/p>\n Managed by Alessandro Dicorrado, the team screens for stocks where the share price has fallen by 50% from its peak compared to the FTSE All Share over the past seven years.<\/p>\n The strategy currently favours industrial and consumer discretionary stocks, both of which are double-digit overweight compared to the FTSE All Share. This gives it a differentiated allocation, underweighting large names such as AstraZeneca in favour of less popular stocks such as Melrose Industries.<\/p>\n It is favoured by the team at RSMR due to its \u201ccontrarian, value-biased approach\u201d and well-resourced and established team.<\/p>\n Performance of fund vs sector and benchmark over 10yrs<\/strong><\/p>\n Source: FE Analytics<\/p>\n But not only active managers made the list (indeed, according to research by AJ Bell earlier this year, 69% of UK active funds failed to outperform the common passive alternative over the past decade).<\/p>\n Almost half of the funds that delivered top-quartile returns over one, three, five and 10 years, were trackers, the majority of which tracked some variant of the FTSE 100, reflecting the outperformance of UK large caps.<\/p>\n The top passive fund over 10 years is the Invesco FTSE RAFI (Research Affiliates Fundamental Index) UK 100 UCITS ETF,<\/a> which is up 143.5%.<\/p>\n This tracks a modified version of the FTSE 100, which is weighted on a combination of sales, cash flow, book value and dividends, rather than market capitalisation.<\/p>\n Performance of fund vs sector over 10yrs<\/strong><\/p>\n Source: FE Analytics<\/p>\n Over this period, the FTSE 100 has surged 120.4%, outperforming the FTSE All Share, as well as the FTSE 250 and Deutsche Numis Small Cap indexes.<\/p>\n Performance of indices over past 10yrs<\/strong><\/p>\n Source: FE Analytics<\/p>\n The Invesco UK Enhanced index<\/a>, iShares 100 UK Equity index<\/a> and Vanguard FTSE 100 UCITS exchange-traded fund (ETF<\/a>) also made the list.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Previously in this series, we examined the funds that delivered top quartile results over one, three, five, and 10 years in global<\/a> markets, Europe,<\/a> and the US.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Active funds delivered the best returns, but passives followed closely behind. Twenty four UK funds have delivered top-quartile…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-590300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115603409355192942","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251121_ukfunds_chart2.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251121_ukfunds_chart3.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251121_ukfunds_chart4.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251121_ukfunds_chart5.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251121_ukfunds_chart6.png\")
<\/p>\n