Many workers in their forties and fifties may never be able to afford to retire after missing out on generous pensions and still having to support their children.

Some 24 per cent of all workers think they won’t be able to afford to stop working (28 per cent of women and 19 per cent of men), according to research by the consultancy Apella Advisors — but that figure grows to 34 per cent among those aged 40 to 54.

Apella surveyed 2,000 adults in December and found that a further 19 per cent of those aged 40 to 54 believed they would only be able to retire in their seventies.

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Analysts fear that millions of workers have chronically undersaved for later life, forcing them to stay in the workplace longer. The number of people aged 66 and over and still in full or part-time work is up 11 per cent in four years — rising from 1.9 million in 2020-21 to 2.12 million in 2024-25, according to HM Revenue & Customs.

James Kirkup from Apella said: “Inadequate pension savings put many people on course for financial challenges in later life, but for younger Generation Xers this can feel particularly acute.”

He said this was because many in their forties and fifties missed out on generous defined benefit (DB) pension schemes offered to previous generations. In these gold-plated schemes, also known as final-salary pensions, your income in retirement is guaranteed and inflation-linked. They have all but disappeared in the private sector because they are too expensive to run.

But for a large part of their careers Generation X (those born between 1965 and 1980) also missed out on pension auto-enrolment, which was introduced in 2012 and automatically enrols most workers into their employer’s workplace pension. You usually have to contribute a minimum of 5 per cent of your qualifying earnings between £6,240 and £50,270, and your employer pays in 3 per cent.

Missing out on auto-enrolment early on in a career means less time for pension contributions to benefit from investment growth and compounding.

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The average employee aged between 45 and 54 has £70,800 in pension savings, according to the investment platform Fidelity. Assuming they earn £40,000 a year, by the time they turned 67 that pot could be worth £235,000, with 2 per cent a year pay rises, pension contributions of 8 per cent and investment growth of 5.2 per cent a year after fees.

But a pot of that size would fall well short of the amount needed for a secure retirement.

To enjoy a comfortable retirement a single person with no mortgage or rent to pay needs £43,900 a year of post-tax income, according to estimates by the industry body Pensions UK. The wealth manager Quilter estimates that someone stopping work today would need a pot of roughly £800,000 — enough to buy an annuity which, when combined with the full state pension of £11,973 a year, would give a guaranteed income of £43,900 a year.

James Baxter from the advice firm Tideway Wealth said: “It should be no surprise that 40 to 54-year-olds feel they have less capacity to save than those under 30. The spending pressure on Generation X, with many supporting families of children and younger adults, is probably at its peak.

“Building retirement savings is rarely a smooth process. Savers should take advantage of any spare cash as it becomes available. It can be available for couples before children arrive or much later in life when children are financially independent and spending pressure declines.”