The average worker faces trying to live off just over £1,000 per year in retirement, a conference was told.
Research from the Policy Exchange was highlighted at the National Association of Pension Funds Investments Conference yesterday.
It showed the average UK employee has a pension pot of just £36,800, yielding an income of approximately £1,340 a year in retirement.
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BlackRock's Investor Pulse Survey also found one in two UK adults have yet to start saving for retirement.
BlackRock's chief executive Larry Fink, speaking at the conference, said these statistics demonstrated the need for better education on pensions.
Mr Fink also presented new BlackRock analysis of the UK annuities market suggesting the cost of retirement income has doubled over the last 40 years.
He said in 1971 each £1 of retirement income cost about £6 of savings for a 70-year-old man. Today, that figure has reached nearly £12, with half the increase due to lower interest rates and half resulting from increased life expectancy.
Mr Fink said: "The shift from defined benefit to defined contribution retirement savings has presented a huge challenge to individual savers here as elsewhere in the world. We need people to save more, and save earlier."
Mr Fink stressed the importance for the industry of thinking beyond traditional investment approaches to live up to its "pensions promises", and also to work more closely together for the benefit of savers.