'Work until you're 86 to get full pension'

Young workers were told today they may have to stay in a job until they are 86 before they can afford to retire.

The warning came after the mass closure of final salary company pension schemes over the past five years.

These guarantee a retirement income linked to the number of years worked but are expensive for employers to fund.

A survey published today found that staff are increasingly being forced to join cheaper "defined contribution" schemes that are exposed to stock market slumps.

The research, from pension advisers Hewitt Bacon & Woodrow, found that few 25-year-olds who are joining schemes are putting enough in to fund a pension worth two thirds of their salary - the standard benchmark for a "comfortable" retirement.

On average, they will have to work to 72 to accumulate big enough pension funds to retire on two thirds of their salary.

However, the analysis suggests there is a 10 per cent risk of having to work to 86 - around a decade beyond average male life expectancy - before achieving the goal.

Pension specialists said that the research pointed to a generationof employees who will not be able to afford to retire in their sixties.

Chris Cairns, an investment expert at Hewitt Bacon & Woodrow said: "These findings are a real cause for concern. Many employers choose to close their final salary schemes to cap their financial exposure.

" While they may have achieved this objective, employees have failed to grasp the implications for their retirement plans and are not setting aside anything like realistic sums." The survey, one of the most comprehensive conducted in Britain, looked at almost 500 pension schemes.

It found that an average of 10 per cent of a worker's salary was paid into defined contribution schemes, with staff contributing four per cent and employers six.

But it warned that this fell well short of what was needed if staff were to save enough to retire on two-thirds of their final salary, particularly as they also had to shoulder the risk of stock market falls.

In another alarming finding, a separate survey last week from financial advisers Origen found a sharp drop in the number of people joining company pension schemes as they become increasingly disillusioned about the benefits.