The UK fitness industry is growing in terms of members, market value and penetration, according to LeisureDB’s State of the UK Fitness Industry Report 2025.

This year’s annual report, which was unveiled this afternoon (5 June) at the Evolve event in London, shows that member numbers, market value and penetration have exceeded that of any previous year among the LeisureDB sample.

In the foreword, LeisureDB founder, David Minton, said: “It gives me the greatest pleasure to read this report and see many of the key industry metrics reaching an all-time high.

“In the last 12 months UK gyms have gained more than 600,000 members, while the market value has risen by more than £500 million to £6.5 billion.

“Penetration has increased from 15.9 per cent to 16.6 per cent, another all-time high.”

“At the end of March 2025, there were 7,202 gyms open in the UK."

Highlights

The number of gyms counted by Leisure DB is 7,202, up from 7,009 last March and 6,998 in March 2023. This representing a growth of 2.8 per cent in this sample and takes the number to just less than the previous peak recorded by Leisure DB in 2019.

Four operators have added more than 10 sites in the last year: PureGym (43); Places Leisure (11); The Gym Group (10) and Serco Leisure (10).

PureGym, The Gym Group and JD Gyms own 94 per cent of the UK’s low cost clubs. The average monthly fee has exceeded £25 or the first time, with 95 per cent of low cost clubs charging more than £20 a month (compared to 69 per cent in 2023 and 89 per cent last year).

Even though the number of public sector gyms has declined slightly in the last 12 months – 2,475 from 2,496 – membership and market value have reached all time highs. The average monthly fee for public sector clubs is £33.16 and the market value is £1.56 billion. Membership numbers have increased by 4.5 per cent to 3.51 million.

Private sector

The market value of the private sector is £4.91 billion, with the average membership price being £48.45. Leisure DB counted 4,727 private health and fitness clubs and almost 7.8 million members. It does not count studios or hotel gyms.

PureGym has the most sites (422) and members, followed by The Gym Group (244), while Anytime Fitness, Nuffield Health and David Lloyd Clubs all have more than 100 clubs in the UK and Snap Fitness, JD Gyms, The Bannatyne Group, Everlast Gyms and Energie Fitness all have between 50 and 100. Collectively these brands have added more than 230,000 members in the past 12 months.

Club closures across the top 10 operators have decreased, with just 20 logged in the last year, compared to 32 in the previous year.

Intel on big trends

New for this year, respondents to the Leisure DB survey were questioned on trends.

Researchers found padel tennis is being offered by 2 per cent of respondents, while 11 per cent have reformer studios, 13 per cent are offering rehab or recovery zones and 10 per cent are offering NHS services on site, such as GP referral, cancer rehab and MSK programmes.

You can read the report online free if you share your contact details and purchase a downloadable copy for £149 + VAT at www.leisuredb.com/publications.