This is how many people there are retiring this year who have no pension savings…

One in seven people who are retiring this year will be doing so with an empty pension pot, research released today has found.

According to the study by Prudential, many soon-to-be pensioners will be left leaning on the state pension for support, despite this being £27.33 a week less than the Joseph Rowntree Foundation recommends as a minimum standard of income.

Women also fare much worse than men in the savings stakes. More than one in five (22 per cent) are due to retire this year having no pension provision at all, compared with only seven per cent of men.

However, London-dwellers will likely be the least dependent on the state pension to keep them going, as just eight per cent will be entering retirement this year with no pension provision.

"The clear lesson from our figures for anyone saving for retirement is that someone expecting to live in any degree of comfort needs to have made some sort of pension provision of their own," said Vince Smith-Hughes, retirement income expert at Prudential. "There are very few better alternatives than saving as much as possible as early as possible in our working lives and the majority of people will benefit from professional financial advice when planning for retirement."

Last month, research by Barclays Stockbrokers found that over half (55 per cent) of those aged over 50 who are either retired or planning their retirement were banking on state pension to form a major part of their retirement income, despite only being worth about £8,000 a year.

The Barclays Stockbrokers study also discovered that 37 per cent of those aged over 50 had not considered how much income they'd need during their golden years to afford the lifestyle they want.