The Office for National Statistics figures also revealed nearly half of the adult population below retirement age had no private pension savings before auto-enrolment started.

Some 45% of men and 49% of women did not have any private pension savings from July 2010 to June 2012. In the public administration, defence and social security categories only 7% of men and 9% of women did not pay into a private pension.

For people without qualifications 83% of women had no private pension savings, with this figure being 68% for men.

 {desktop}{/desktop}{mobile}{/mobile}

Higher proportions of people without a private pension were found in those who were aged between 16-24, those with no qualification and those who were not in work.
A third of employees, nearly half of the self-employed and around 80% of men and women 'not in work' did not have any private pension savings in Great Britain in 2010 to 2012.
London was the English region that had the highest proportion of households without a private pension (35%), with the north-east second (32%).

Some 76% of women in routine occupations did not have a private pension in Great Britain in 2010-2012 compared to 15% of women in higher managerial and professional occupations, a difference of 61 percentage points.

The median of the sum of property, physical and financial wealth was £160,000 for households with a private pension in Great Britain.
This was nearly seven times larger than for households without a private pension at £23,900.
The ONS report stated: "In terms of those who were working, those who earned less than £300 a week, those that worked in routine occupations, and those that worked in industries such as accommodation and food services had higher proportions of individuals without a private pension.
"The households that had no private pension also seemed to have lower amounts of other wealth such as wealth in property, financial wealth and wealth in physical assets."