The research showed many will need to adjust their savings habits or adjust their ambitions. While millennials would like to retire at 56 with £300,000 in savings, current savings levels would see them around £150,000 short.

As it is, a pot of £300,000 would buy them an annual income of £10,000 to £15,000, which may not be enough to fulfil their retirement ambitions to ‘eat out multiple times a week, travel the world and enjoy weekly culture experiences’. Currently, the average millennial saves £200 a month, which would give them a pot of £52,800 by 56. At these levels, they could run out of money after just four years and nine months.

When asked why they can’t save more, 54% said it would negatively impact their social lives, while a further 45% said they couldn’t live without their TV, fashion and food subscriptions.

However, millennials also face higher living costs and relatively lower wages. Those born in the late 1980s are earning no more in their late 20s than those born in the early 1970s did at their age, but at the same time the cost of housing has been rising for the last six decades. Young people today are spending three times as much as the pre-war generation spent at their age. This is also having an impact on their ability to save.

Clare Francis, savings and investments director at Barclays, said: “It’s great that millennials have given themselves a target, as it shows they are thinking about their long-term futures. We know it’s often tempting to put off saving for retirement – it can feel like an age away and not a priority when you’re in your twenties and already under pressure to make ends meet. But the sooner you can start putting money away, the better.”