Research has found that 6 per cent of UK workers, equivalent to over a million people, believe that they will never retire.

The study, conducted by Canada Life, also found that 44 per cent of workers, equivalent to 17.1 million people, think that they will work beyond state pension age.

This represents a fall of 2.7 million people from 51 per cent of workers in 2020.

Of those expecting to work beyond state pension age, 43 per cent believed that their pension would not be sufficient to retire fully and will need to continue earning money.

Meanwhile, nearly a quarter (22 per cent) said they would continue to work as they were unsure how long their retirement savings would last, while 10 per cent felt prepared but were concerned that they current lifestyle meant it would be too expensive for them to retire.

The biggest concern amongst those who planned to work beyond state pension age was they would be unable to enjoy their older age, with 34 per cent citing this as a worry.

Meanwhile, a third (33 per cent) were concerned their health would deteriorate because they needed to continue working and 27 per cent either needed or wanted to work but were worried their health could make it difficult to do so.

Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) wanted to keep working beyond state pension age because they enjoyed the routine, while 21 per cent said they liked their job and wanted to continue working.

Commenting on the findings, Canada Life technical director, Andrew Tully, said: “Despite over a million people thinking they will never retire, there is a considerable drop in the number of people thinking they will work beyond their state pension age. Understandably the pandemic has had a drastic impact on this, with many people reevaluating how they want to live and what they want to do in later life.

“Digging beneath the surface, there are a variety of reasons for working beyond state pension age, or not retiring at all. For some people the social side of work would be missed, but for others, financial considerations are a key driver.

“As an industry, we need to find ways of encouraging better engagement in long-term financial planning as a way to ensure that people are confident that they are building sufficient savings for retirement.

“Auto-enrolment has been an unqualified success but we need to think about how we encourage greater levels of saving, perhaps by introducing auto-escalation at the point of pay reviews.

“For example, the employee receives a pay rise and automatically a percentage of that goes into the pension as additional savings. Consideration should also be given to extending auto-enrolment to workers who don’t currently get picked up, including low earners and the self-employed as soon as possible. This would help level up the pensions playing field.”

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