UK employees are still expecting to fully retire at 66 and spend 16 years in retirement despite financial worries, according to Aegon.

The first-ever Aegon Retirement Readiness survey questioned 9,000 people in nine countries worldwide on their attitudes to retirement.

Retirement ages among countries ranged from 65-67 and the survey said that while people had a negative view of their retirement finances, they were not willing to work longer to address that issue.

Some 46 per cent of people in the UK were pessimistic about whether they would have enough money to live on in retirement and 40 per cent said they thought they would need 60-79 per cent of what they currently earn to sustain them in retirement.

Some 66 per cent of people in the UK said financial worries meant they had to plan more for retirement and 67 per cent said they were going to take fewer risks with their retirement funds.

Some 44 per cent of people said they needed more financial advice to make sense of uncertain investment markets and 42 per cent said they were looking for investment products which offered greater protection against volatile markets.

However, while people were not keen to work longer than their expected retirement age they were looking towards a phased retirement with 55 per cent expecting a change in work patterns compared to 22 per cent who said they would stop work immediately.

Alex Wynaendts, chief executive of Aegon, said: “People in working life today increasingly accept that their retirement will look very different than that of their predecessors. Most have a clear expectation they will keep working in some capacity after the traditional retirement age, approaching full retirement in phases.

“Accommodating the ‘new retirement’ will necessitate greater flexibility in terms of fiscal polices and incentives, as well as working patterns provided by employers.”