Almost half (40 per cent) of people said guaranteed income was most important to them when they thought about retirement, according to research from Hargreaves Lansdown.

The survey, which looked at what people want from retirement, found that almost a quarter (22 per cent) of people said that income that rises in line with inflation was important to them.

Flexibility was less important, as fewer than one in five said it was important to them.

However, this increased in importance the more people earned, as quarter of additional rate taxpayers said flexibility was important to them compared to 18 per cent of people who paid the basic rate.

In addition to this, 43 per cent of basic rate taxpayers said a guaranteed income was important, while 28 per cent of those on additional rate said the same.

Hargreaves Lansdown head of retirement analysis, Helen Morrissey, said that guaranteed income was a “clear winner” when it came to what people want from retirement.

She explained that the reason for this is that people don’t know how long they are going to live and the idea of being able to rely on a “certain income” throughout that time can bring “real peace of mind” to retirement planning.

She added: “Given our recent experience of sky-high inflation, it is no surprise that an income that rises in line with prices also proves popular with over one in five saying it is important.

“Many people have had to really struggle with their budgets in recent years and even though inflation is now receding, in many cases this is things getting expensive more slowly rather than falling.”

Morrissey said that annuities are designed to provide both of these things people want in retirement but noted “the annuity market is dwarfed by more flexible options such as income drawdown and the ability to take cash lump sums.”

She also stated that flexibility proved important to higher-paid people, suggesting that this “could be because they already have sufficient assets to give them a good baseline level of income and so can afford to be a bit more flexible”.

“You could be retired a long time and the ability to take different levels of income can come in very useful,” Morrisey continued.

“However, there’s nothing to say that your retirement planning cannot incorporate both the security of a guaranteed income and a bit of flexibility.

“There’s no reason why you have to annuitise your entire pension in one go. Instead, you could annuitise in slices as you go through retirement.

“This would enable you to secure income as you need it while keeping the rest invested where it can benefit from investment growth."

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