Grandparents who look after their grandchildren during the school holidays help parents save a small fortune and remove the hassle of finding good-quality childcare. A typical family working full-time with two children would spend about £2,064 a year on holiday childcare.

This help is not just restricted to an occasional night of babysitting. More than half of grandparents who help out do so more than once a week: nearly a quarter (24%) do so several times a week and 9% on a daily basis. This is in addition to the 23% of grandparents who regularly do the school run.

Mark Kelly, director of Norwich Union Personal Finance, said: "With many parents working longer hours and facing long commutes to work, there is an increasing reliance on outside support but this can be expensive and difficult to organise."

"This is resulting in an increasing pressure on the wider family to provide help, with grandparents providing much of this support. Instead of paying substantial sums for a nanny or childcare centre, parents would prefer to lean on grandma and grand-dad to look after the kids in the comfort of their own home."

The research also shows that older family members are providing essential help around the home. For example, more than four in ten (43%) provide help by cooking an occasional family meal, and almost a third (30%) play the role of financial adviser to their families.

Mark Kelly concludes: "It's clear that many families rely on the help of grandparents, but with an increasing number of grandparents forced to work into retirement, this valuable source of help may not be as readily available in the future."