Every year PureGym publishes its UK Fitness Report: a nationally representative survey of 2,000+ adults, YouGov tracking data, its own member data and — new for the 2025/26 edition — a panel of its in-house personal trainers. We read every section and pulled out what actually matters if you coach for a living.
Here are the UK fitness statistics that matter, the fitness industry trends shaping 2027, and six moves personal trainers can make for the rest of 2026 and into next year.
The state of the UK fitness industry
The intent gap is your market
Three-quarters of UK adults (76%) say they want to be fit and healthy — a figure that hasn't moved in three years. Yet only 48% currently exercise, and of those who do, only around 3 in 10 (31%) hit the government's weekly guideline for moderate activity.
Gym membership is growing — 19% of people are now members, roughly 13.2 million, up about 1.4 million on the year before — and a further 17% plan to join in the next 12 months. The report estimates that leaves up to 10 million people who want to start but haven't taken the leap. That gap between wanting and doing is exactly where a good coach earns their fee.
Why people train has shifted
Among people who exercise, the biggest motivators are rising fast: improving overall health (56%, up 7 points), mental health (43%, up 9) and feeling happier with their appearance (36%, up 9). And when asked what they most want to improve, the top answers aren't abs or a bigger bench — they're sleep quality (34%), energy levels (32%) and mental health (29%). 68% of people say they struggle with fatigue.
If your marketing still leads purely with aesthetics, you're speaking to a shrinking share of the room. Energy, sleep and feeling better are the outcomes people are actively looking for.
People still want a person
77% of the PTs surveyed said client relationship and rapport is the main reason clients stay, ahead of seeing results (67%). The most common client tenure is 7–12 months (29%), and 13% of PTs have clients who've stayed more than two years.
Meanwhile, searches for “remote personal training” — the previous year's top trend — fell 81%, one of the steepest declines in the report's trend data. And 83% of the PTs surveyed see personal training as part of the UK's preventative healthcare system. The human side of coaching isn't going anywhere.
Fitness industry trends for 2027: 6 moves for personal trainers
Beat the winter dip
Physical activity is seasonal: 48% of people are active in summer, falling to 36% in autumn and just 30% in winter. Darker evenings are when clients drift — and when retention is won or lost.
Do this
Lock in retention now with weekly check-ins, simple habit targets and home-session options — 68% of people who exercise already work out at home every week.
Structured check-ins make the drift visible early, before a quiet week turns into a cancellation.
Pre-sell January
December is the gym's quietest month; January is its busiest, holding 60% of the year's busiest days. The New Year is one of the three life events most likely to get people exercising regularly for the first time, alongside holidays and milestone birthdays.
Do this
Open a New Year waitlist in December. Take enquiries, onboarding forms and payment before the rush, so new clients start in week one of January rather than week three.
Pair it with booking and payments so the admin is done before the busiest month of the year.
Coach beyond the gym floor
Only 44% of people now feel they have a healthy diet (down from 63% in 2024), and 3 in 10 admit they don't know what a healthy diet should look like. Brits drink an average of 662ml of water a day — about a third of the recommended 1.5–2.5 litres — and sleep is now the number one thing people want to improve.
Do this
Build sleep, hydration and nutrition habits into every plan — not just sets and reps. Be clear about your scope: refer clinical dietary needs to a dietitian or GP.
It's no surprise that Level 4 Nutrition for Sport and Exercise is the most popular extra qualification among the PTs surveyed. Tools like an AI nutrition diary make logging easy enough that clients actually do it.
Out-coach the AI
A third of people (33%) now use AI tools for fitness, up from 27% a year earlier. Of those, 41% use it for nutrition and meal planning, 38% for basic exercise plans, and 37% feed it their own data to build a fully bespoke plan.
“While it can offer form tips, AI cannot provide real-time feedback or correct mistakes as they happen.”
Do this
Offer AI-plan reviews and live form coaching — the parts AI can't do. Position yourself as the expert who checks, adapts and keeps people accountable.
Asynchronous form video reviews let you give that human feedback between sessions too.
Coach the jab generation
17% of people say they'd like to try weight-loss medication such as Ozempic, though only 4% have actually tried it — and the most common view (20%) is that it's a short-term fix rather than a lifestyle change. Uptake is likely to keep rising.
“Even my clients who have taken an interest in exercising and improving their diet … have started gaining weight back as soon as they've stopped the medication.”
Do this
Offer strength and protein-focused programmes that help clients protect muscle and keep their results — on and off the jab. Work alongside their prescriber, never instead of them.
Well-structured training programmes with clear progression are the backbone of that offer.
Ride the trends
Comparing Google searches for July–September 2025 with the same period in 2024, low-impact movement is surging: “Japanese walking” is up 2,968%, “walking yoga” 2,414% and the “plank hover” 967%, while Hyrox is still up 171%. On the way down: remote personal training (−81%), wall Pilates (−63%) and boutique fitness (−56%).
Do this
Add walking and mobility sessions to your offer to win beginners and over-55s — 27% of over-55s say their age is the reason they don't exercise.
About the data
All figures come from the PureGym UK Fitness Report 2025/26, published in December 2025. Its sources are a Censuswide survey of 2,000+ nationally representative UK adults (September 2025), YouGov data, PureGym's internal member data, a survey of PureGym's own personal trainers, and Google Keyword Planner search data for the trends. The PT figures reflect PureGym's in-house trainers rather than the whole industry. Train App is not affiliated with PureGym.