On average, survey respondents said they’d want to retire with an income of roughly £30,000, despite only one in 12 making realistic provision for this level of pension.

In total almost 6,000 people were interviewed for the study, which found just under half not saving enough to guarantee a comfortable retirement.

Ian Naismith, Scottish Widows’ head of pensions market development, said: “The truth of the matter is quite simple – if you want to have a fairly comfortable retirement you should be saving at least 12 per cent of your earnings year in, year out from the age of 30 until retirement at 65.

“And to achieve the income most people say they’re looking for would require much more than that. As a nation we are not saving nearly enough – yet we still hope we will be comfortable in retirement,” he added.

However, perhaps the most worrying statistic from the survey was that 26 per cent of respondents said they had no pension savings at all.

A separate survey from Axa found almost all of its participants failed to live on the basic state pension for just one week, some – single young women – overspending by as much as 200 per cent.

To read more about pensioners, click here.

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