40% of senior executives enjoy a 1/45th accrual rate

The consultant’s annual executive retirement benefit survey revealed this compared to just 3pc of other employees.

But the study also found that only 29pc of companies surveyed were offering higher level or different types of retirement benefits to its executive directors and senior executives, which is down 15pc from last year.

Xafinity said the increase in demand for self-invested personal pensions was a developing trend, with 25pc of employers now offering the pensions product to their senior executives.

Xafinity Consulting’s managing director Robert Birmingham said: "It is evident from this year’s results that there is a continuing trend towards the convergence of benefits for senior executives with those of other employees.

"With DC being more widely used for future service provision the true impact of this change on retirement pensions for senior executives may take several years to emerge. However, unless we see substantive increases in DC contribution levels we can anticipate that many senior executives will find that their retirement funds are unable to purchase pensions anywhere near the levels enjoyed by the previous generations of executive."

Xafinity Consulting interviewed 3000 human resource managers and directors from a range of organisations across the UK.