The number of men being offered paid paternity leave has more than doubled in the year.

But the benefit most employees want is a company pension.

About 51 per cent of employers now provide paid paternity leave compared with 24 per cent a year ago, according to a survey of employee benefits by Virgin money.

Most workers wanted their company to contribute to their pension, with 86 per cent of people questioned claiming this was an important perk. But only 49 per cent of firms currently paid into a scheme for staff.

Virgin said pensions had come top of employees' wish list every year since it first started the survey three years ago.

The biggest gap between what employees wanted and what their bosses provided involved childcare, with 50 per cent of staff claiming a creche at work would be an important benefit but only one per cent of employers provided one.

Career breaks were considered a top perk by 55 per cent of workers but only ten per cent of companies offered them.

Seventy-one per cent of staff wanted health insurance.

This was offered by only 25 per cent of firms.

Gordon Maw, of Virgin Money, said: "Pensions remained at the top of the most wanted list for workers and the number of employers who offer their staff a pension has actually risen by eight per cent in the last year. Introducing some form of pension compulsion is still the best way of ensuring people have enough money for retirement.

"As the case of paternity leave shows, government intervention can be a force for good in the workplace."

The group said one reason why there was a gap in some areas between the benefits staff wanted and the ones they were offered could be because workers were not consulted by companies.

Sixty-eight per cent of employees claimed their firm had not asked them what benefits they wanted during the past year.