One in five workers say they won't be able to afford to retire until they're 70.

The annual survey by pension provider Royal London Ireland, shows 52% expect to be able to stop working by the time they reach the State pension age of 66, or just before at 65-year-old.

Meanwhile, 18% of over-55s, who took part in the research, said they never want to fully retire from the workforce, according to the pension company's Retirement Age Financial Feasibility Survey 2025.

Assistant Professor of Economics at Trinity College, Dublin, Dr Barra Roantree, said longer life expectancy means more people are fit and healthy enough to keep working in later life.

" People are kind of maybe approaching retirement and thinking, I'm going to live longer and I'm going to need more in retirement to finance my lifestyle or finance the lifestyle I want to have during retirement.

"So people are maybe thinking, well, we're living a bit longer so I probably need a little bit more money to keep me ticking over into retirement, and so kind people putting off, actually retiring and are working for a bit longer.

Dr Roantree, said the cost of housing has impacted the amount of money workers are able to save into a pension.

"In many cases, and this is particularly linked to housing, people are thinking, well, I actually need to have more money in retirement. Maybe I don't own my own home, maybe I need to be able to rent privately, or maybe I just haven't been able to put enough aside because I only took out a mortgage much later in life, and I've only just paid it off in my kind of sixties, as opposed to maybe earlier, that my many previous generations would have".