Recently, the design of piled raft foundation has been updated to consider the role of the raft foundation in providing adequate bearing capacity in addition to the role of piles in reducing settlements. However, when these piles are structurally connected to the raft, as they are in traditional construction, a high axial stress may develop in the pile heads. Thus, the load-carrying capacity of these settlement reducing piles may be governed by their structural capacity rather than by their geotechnical capacity. An alternative solution for piled raft is to disconnect the piles from the raft and utilize a cushion of sand or other material sandwiched between the raft and the piles. This new system is termed unconnected piled raft foundation (UCPRF), where the cushion assists in reducing the values of stresses along the pile, thus steel reinforcement could be minimized or even reduced. The main advantage of the UCPRE is that it provides a more cost effective system. Most of the previous studies of UCPRE consider constant pile lengths and uniform pile distribution. In this paper, a numerical model is used to analyze and investigate the load sharing capacity for various conditions. The effect of variable pile lengths, pile spacing, raft aspect ratio and pile material has been considered to evaluate the effectiveness of the unconnected system in reducing overall settlements. The study showed that UCPRF provides an economical alternative for a connected piled raft foundation subject to vertical axial loads.