By Dr Matthew Wade, Interim Director of Research at ukactive
Last week, we launched the UK Health & Fitness Market Report 2025 – the first of its kind to provide quarterly trends for the UK fitness sector. It’s more than just a report. It’s a tool for progress, built on collaboration, data, and a shared belief that our sector deserves to be at the heart of national policy and investment conversations.
Our sector provides essential services to support the nation’s wellbeing, contributing to physical health, mental wellness, and even economic growth.
So, why was this report created?
The report marks a major milestone in the sector’s evolution. It was created to bring together the right data, expertise, and partnerships, in one place, to provide an accurate roadmap for future growth, investment, and participation — ultimately strengthening the role of fitness in the nation’s health and economic landscape.
We know that the UK health and fitness market is diverse, with operators across our sector ranging from multinational gym chains to independent studios. We wanted to capture data from both the private and public sectors and integrate consumer insights, so that operators, investors, and policymakers can make informed decisions. A solid foundation was needed to document and track industry growth, and this report is essential as part of ukactive’s Vision 2030 strategy to grow facilities’ membership numbers across the UK.
The method behind the metrics
Getting this report right meant getting the process right. We brought together the best available data, from both private and public sector operators, and validated it with leading experts and tools. The report is based on recorded members visits and customers swiping into facilities, so we can be confident that the report brings together accurate data from leading industry partners.
The methodology includes:
- Operator data: The report aggregates recorded customer visits from more than 4,200 public, private, and independent fitness operators across the UK.
- Consumer insights: ukactive’s Consumer Engagement surveys add valuable context by capturing changing preferences, motivations, and barriers to fitness participation.
- Market analysis: Deloitte’s expertise ensures that key trends, including mergers, acquisitions, and investment activity, are rigorously analysed.
- Extrapolation and validation: Sport England’s Active Places Power database was used as the basis for extrapolation, with existing partner datasets used to verify and cross-check findings, ensuring consistency and credibility.
This structured and collaborative approach with our partners ensures that this report can serve as the most authoritative and accurate reflection of the UK health and fitness sector to date.
The role of industry partners
This project would not have been possible without collaboration across the sector. Our partners were essential in providing analysis, data, support and consultation to ensure the report was truly authoritative.
The report was only possible due to our sector sponsors, BLK Box, Gladstone, Life Fitness / Hammer Strength, Matrix, Myzone and Technogym, which together provided the funding to support the development and delivery of this report.
Deloitte provided expert analysis and market performance experience and understanding and were chosen for continuity with their involvement in the European Health & Fitness Market Report that is produced annually. This year’s report was also launched at this week’s European Health & Fitness Forum in Cologne, where our UK data was included.
Sport England provided expertise and amalgamated health and fitness membership data from public leisure facilities using its Moving Communities service, via 4GLOBAL.
4GLOBAL powered the report by providing all sector data as the data intelligence partner of Sport England’s Moving Communities and ukactive’s Private and Independent Sector Benchmarking projects.
And of course, ukactive members played a crucial role by contributing data and providing feedback and insights to shape the report in a way that genuinely reflects the needs of operators across the UK.
This collaboration is what makes the report truly reflective of the entire sector.
Why does this report matter for the health and fitness sector?
This year’s report is more than just a dataset – it’s a strategic tool for the sector’s future. This first set of data has already been used within the European Health & Fitness Market Report, showing that it is already becoming the one-stop shop for an authoritative view of the UK market.
What can the report be used for?
With strong data, there are so many ways that the report can be used to support organisations in our sector:
- Operators are now able to benchmark and track their performance to help them refine strategies and improve their member engagement.
- It also gives a clear message to investors as the report contains clear insights into market trends that will help drive further investment and expansion opportunities across the sector.
- It enables the Government and stakeholders to use its data and analysis to provide fundamental evidence that can shape policies that promote physical activity and sector sustainability.
- The inclusion of consumer polling through ukactive’s Consumer Engagement workstream means all of the membership, revenue and wider data is viewed alongside it, to give an understanding of what motivates or discourages customers in their decision to take out a membership. This can then help fitness providers and operators to tailor their offerings and improve retention rates.
What’s next? Expanding the impact
This report is not a one-off publication – it will serve as an annual benchmark for the sector, allowing year-on-year comparisons and deeper analysis over time. The findings will continue to feed into the European Health & Fitness Market Report, strengthening the UK’s position within the global fitness industry.
Moving forward, we aim to expand our data collection, incorporate more operators and refine methodologies to ensure even greater accuracy. By continuing to track quarterly trends through consistent, regular, credible data sets that cover public, private, and independent operators, combined with fresh consumer polling, the report will continue to give our sector the foundation it requires and deserves to grow and succeed.
If you work for an operator and want to contribute data to the benchmarking projects or be part of future editions of this report, please contact Dr Matthew Wade at: research@ukactive.org.uk
Download the UK Health & Fitness Report 2025 here.
More People More Active More Often
