A tool for electronic tablets to figure out what one needs to save to achieve retirement goals has been launched amid fears UK citizens do not have a realistic notion of what they need.

Regardless of whether an investor is super-rich or far less well-off, it can be a shock when expectations of future wealth collide with cold reality.

To enable investors to visualise what they need to save to fund the lifestyle they hope for, UK-based Seven Investment Management has launched My Future, an interactive, gaming-style tool that shows clients when their retirement savings run out.

7IM showed My Future – which can be viewed on devices such as a tablet – to journalists at a launch event earlier this week; among the features that struck your correspondent was how it illustrated, in alarming-looking shades of red, the gap between the expected retirement income a person might have, and what they really will have, if certain savings/spending assumptions hold.

The My Future tool is a new feature on the 7IMagine app (available from the Apple store and Google). It allows advisors to put in details about clients’ existing savings and pension contributions, as well as spending expectations in retirement, to identify when their cash will run out. It was built by gaming experts who worked on Donkey Kong and Golden Eye.

The launch comes at a time when UK citizens continue to be told they face a savings shortfall, in part because of rising lifespans and inadequate savings. The closure and running down of final-salary pension funds, almost a decade of low, zero or even negative interest rates, and modest market returns, have taken their toll too. At the higher-earning end of the spectrum, the current Conservative government, along with its Conservative/Liberal and Labour predecessors, have squeezed tax-free pension savings allowances, although the present government has also freed up pensions from some limits and changed rules around inheritance.

One problem is that citizens often do not realise how much they must save, 7IM chief executive Tom Sheridan said.

“It’s frightening, but we’re saying what most advisors already know – the biggest factor putting people off investing enough into a pension is not appreciating just how much they need. We’ve built this tool to help them with the challenge of getting the message across to clients.”

Research for 7IM, based on a sample of 2,000 persons, showed that on average they think a comfortable retirement income for an individual is £23,400. With a maximum state pension at just over £6,000 a year, that means saving enough to generate £17,400 a year in retirement. 7IM says that at a conservative estimate that would mean saving £348,000. On average people guessed half that figure. “If you did only save half your necessary target but carried on taking out £17,400 a year you would run out of money within 12 years,” said Sheridan. “But the average man reaching 65 now has another 18 years left, and women have 21 years,” he said.