By Huw Edwards, CEO of ukactive
As the Budget looms at the end of November, the voice across all sectors is united and clear: there can be no more tax on business.
All businesses and households are bracing themselves for a painful Budget as the Chancellor attempts to balance the country’s finances in the face of continued stagnant growth, an ageing society, and public services that are unable to consistently meet the needs of communities. The options facing the Chancellor seem to be a combination of further squeezes on public spending and some form of tax increases.
The fear is that businesses could be whacked again and that there is a repeat of the 2024 Budget, which was a nightmare for business and saw a sharp increases in operational and employment costs – and our sector was no exception. Lessons must be learnt from the 2024 Budget, and the Chancellor must not punish businesses any further. Instead, now is the time to make pro-growth decisions that encourage investment, improve productivity, and create business confidence.
This is especially the case in the fitness and leisure sector.
The post-pandemic growth of the UK’s health and fitness market is a major UK PLC success story, with over 600 million visits recorded last year to gyms, pools and leisure centres (UK Health & Fitness Market Report 2025). More than one in six people in the UK are members of a health and fitness club, totalling a record 11.5 million people, people and revenue across the sector has also risen from £5.2bn in 2023 to £5.7bn in 2024 – an impressive 8.8% increase. All of this has been achieved against a difficult economic backdrop.
As reported earlier this year, our sector has successfully responded to the public’s changing attitude to health and wellbeing. More and more people are recognising the benefits of being more active and prioritising their time and money in pursuit of their own physical and mental health. To support this, ukactive’s Consumer Engagement research shows that Britons are spending up to three times more on their health and fitness than they are on drinking socially (15% vs 5%), with options such as eating out (9%) appearing lower on people’s spending priorities, suggesting many are choosing to invest their money in gym memberships for their long-term health and wellbeing.
That said, this growth cannot be taken for granted. The Government needs to place significant focus and care on our sector as there are still some areas of fragility. Demand remains strong for our sector’s services, but the ability to meet that demand and secure investment into the sector is being threatened by low investor confidence and a lack of clarity on how to afford replacing ageing facilities, especially swimming pools. Higher taxes would stall expansion plans, delay redevelopments, reduce reinvestment in ageing facilities and undermine the chances of any long-term growth.
Imposing further business taxes on our growing sector would place more pressure on operators who are already working on low margins, and risk service reduction, especially for non-commercial and socially valuable programmes that keep people out of hospital.
Our message will continue to be clear to the Government and MPs across the UK whose constituents depend on the gyms, pools, and leisure centres in their communities. The Budget needs to back our sector, a growing sector, and not whack it with more business taxes. Failure to heed this concern would lead to a continued stalling of economic growth, suppress consumer demand and employment into the sector and reduce services that keep people out of hospital. Do not repeat the mistakes of the 2024 Budget and instead, back this sector to help drive economic growth and take pressure off the NHS.
The Autumn Budget takes place on Wednesday 26 November and ukactive members will receive regular updates and analysis as part of their membership. Find out about becoming a member here.
