21% of adults here do not have any financial arrangements in place for retirement, a new survey has found.

That is up four percentage points on last year, according to the research by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC).The consumer watchdog also found the absence of provision increases to 28% among those aged over 55.

However, six in every 10 adults said they do have a pension in place, similar to last year’s findings.

“It’s clear that a significant pensions gap still exists, even among workers who are only 10 or 20 years away from retirement,” said Grainne Griffin, director of communications with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission. “We strongly encourage consumers, particularly anyone over 30, who doesn’t have a pension to set one up immediately, even if their contributions are very small.”

Affordability was cited by just under a third of respondents as being the reason why they have no provision, while a quarter said they simply had not got around to it. 69% said they plan on using a State pension to fund their retirement. More than half of those surveyed said they plan to use savings to fund or partially fund their later years.

However, this means that they are potentially missing out on the tax benefits that pension plans attract.

“As pension contributions are tax free, the longer-term value of even a very small regular contribution will be surprising,” said Ms Griffin.

Just 39% expressed confidence that their pension will allow them a good standard of living when they retire. Two thirds of the 739 respondents said they have never had a one-to-one conversation with a financial advisor about retirement. Nearly three quarters of consumers said they would be more willing to increase their pension contributions if they were to be matched by the employer.

“We also know that where employers offer to match higher pension contributions, it makes employees much more likely to increase their level of investment in their pension,” said Ms Griffin.

“With pensions subject to less tax than wages, savvy employers could opt to invest in their workforce by boosting pension contributions rather than salaries, and reducing their employees overall tax liability.”

The survey comes as the Government continues to plan the rollout of pension auto-enrolment, which would see workers automatically added into a private pension scheme unless they opt out.