Marcus by Goldman Sachs surveyed more than 8,000 adults as part of its 2021 worth and value report and found that 65% favoured building up their emergency savings account over any other financial activity.

Furthermore, 41% of respondents said they transferred a set amount of money into a savings account as soon as they got paid.

Investing has risen in popularity since last year’s survey, with 23% of adults revealing they planned to start investing, outside of their pension savings, or invest more in the next 12 months compared to 15% in 2020.

More than one in ten investors (14%) claimed to have invested in cryptocurrencies while 11% said they planned to do so in the future.

Meanwhile, 15% of investors said they have had some engagement with a trend to invest in non-fungible tokens (NFT). These are one-of-a-kind digital assets that sometimes take the form of memes. Each token has a unique identification code and metadata which makes them different from one another.

However, a higher proportion of respondents, 22%, invested in art during the same period highlighting that investors still favour backing more traditional assets.

Amanda Le Brocq, head of strategy for Marcus by Goldman Sachs in the UK, said: “For the second year, our research has shown just how highly we value the practices of building an emergency fund, and regularly contributing to a savings pot, even in a low interest and high inflation environment.

“Yet we’re increasingly engaging with alternatives to saving. More people are investing their money in the stock market, probably in response to higher living costs and because some people have accumulated extra cash during recent lockdowns. It seems that more of us are seeing the benefits of balancing saving with investing, and the value of taking a risk for potential reward.”