A survey exploring the financial outlook of LGBT people in the UK has concluded that LGBT women are less confident than GBT men about their financial future.

The study was undertaken by investment management company BlackRock as part of its global Investor Pulse survey. This took place between July and September last year and involved 35,000 financial decision makers in 20 countries being questioned. This included 4,000 people in the UK, of whom 213 identified as LGBT.

Releasing data just ahead of this weekend’s Brighton Pride, key findings include:

Over half of LGBT men (55%) feel positive about their finances compared to 40% of LGBT women.

In preparing for retirement, six in 10 (58%) LGBT men indicated that they have started saving specifically for retirement compared with under half of LGBT women (47%).

Across the general population, the 45-54 age group feel least positive about their financial futures, but within the LGBT community, it’s the 45-54 age group that feel most positive about their financial future, whereas younger and older LGBTs feel less positive.

Almost six in ten (58%) LGBT people are concerned that the state pension will be not be sufficient to meet their future retirement income needs, yet the majority of LGBTs haven’t started to save towards retirement.

Outside of a pension, cash makes up the greatest proportion of savings across the population (67%). This falls slightly to 63% for LGBT people – but there’s a significant difference between men and women. LGBT women hold 76% of their savings in cash, while GBT men have 57% of their savings in cash – meaning men are likely to have more diversified portfolios of savings and investments.

Both LGBT and non-LGBT people desire a similar post-retirement income (£22,000-£23,000) but the majority do not realize how much they need to save in order to achieve this. LGBT people thought a retirement pot worth £194k will be sufficient, but in actual fact they would needed to have saved more than triple this amount to attain that sort of figure – approximately £665k, according to BlackRock’s figures.

Almost six in ten (58%) are concerned that the state pension will be not be sufficient to meet their future retirement income needs, yet the majority of LGBTs haven’t started to save towards retirement.

BlackRock believe the reason that the LGBT 45-54 age group feel more positive about their finances is that, compared to the general population, this age group is less likely to feel the financial squeeze of having children. However, it feels this finding is likely to change as an increasing number of LGBT people choose to have children.

‘LGBTs are less likely to have started saving for retirement than non-LGBTs’

Commenting on the findings, Alex Hoctor-Duncan, Savings and Investment Expert and Sponsor of the OUT Network (the LGBT Employee Network at BlackRock), said: ‘Both LGBTs and non-LGBTs face very similar challenges in ensuring a comfortable retirement, particularly in how they are saving and planning for it.

‘However, when you dig a little deeper, the survey findings reveal that LGBTs are less likely to have started saving for retirement than non-LGBTs, with LGBT women the furthest behind.

‘When it comes to cash, we could all learn something from LGBT men. LGBT men hold just over half of their savings and investments in cash compared to the 67% held by the average Brit. This makes them the most diversified when it comes to managing their money.’

‘With interest rates held at historic lows for the seventh year in a row, people really do need to question just how much cash they have sat in their bank account and whether it’s working hard enough to meet the income goals they want in later life.’

‘Since the results of the [EU] referendum, our analysis shows that the cost of retirement has increased 15%’

Asked by GSN if it believed the recent EU Brexit vote was likely to change people’s confidence in their financial future to a greater extent, Hoctor-Duncan replied: ‘Over the last four years, since first starting the Investor Pulse survey, we have seen no real change in the amount of income people want annually in retirement, regardless of what is happening in markets and the broader economy.

‘However, what has changed is the “cost” of retirement. Since the results of the referendum, our analysis shows that the cost of retirement has increased 15%. This means that pre-retirees need more saved in their pension pots than before in order to “buy” the same level of income.’