THE vast majority of financial advisers have no faith in the longevity of the current state pension system, according to research published today.

Just eight of the 200 experts surveyed believe that the pension rules will be the same 30 years from now, while the rest have accepted that the goalposts — mainly the minimum age to start receiving payments — will move further back.

But reality has caught up with expectations as the wheels of change are already in motion, says National Pensioners Convention (NPC) national officer Neil Duncan-Jordan.

The state pension age for women born on or after April 6 1953 will gradually rise from 60 to 65, starting next year, to match that of men, the government decided this year.

The state pension age for both sexes will increase to 66 from December 2018. By the 2030s it will jump again by another two years to 68.

Taxpayers born after the 1970s will be especially hard hit by the shift and will have to “work longer, pay more and get less,” Mr Duncan-Jordan told the Star, in response to the survey findings from pension firm Aegon UK.

“The pension age is not going to stay the same, as changes are already on the cards and it will absolutely get worse,” he stressed.

The state pension is a lifeline for some 1.2 million retired people who have no other source of income.

But 200,000 people expecting to stop working in 2017 are set to miss out on the full amount, as they have made insufficient national insurance contributions.

A lack of clarity on how much people can expect to receive from the government has left many workers unclear about how much they needed to save in private pension pots, said Aegon UK retail managing director Duncan Jarrett.

On average, workers save £63,815 each in private pensions and if they want to receive £303 a week in retirement, they need at least another £273,000 on top of their state pension, Mr Jarrett added.

The NPC supports a TUC Congress motion brought by the TSSA union that calls on the union federation to fight the “work till you drop” culture in its campaign for fairer pensions, said Mr Duncan-Jordan.