By Huw Edwards, CEO of ukactive
January traditionally sees a period of sober reflection following the Christmas and New Year holidays. Many people reflect on what difference they want to feel in their lives over the coming year, whether that be professional or personal. Our sector is a key part of this moment, with motivations to prioritise health and fitness for many leading to high demand in membership requests and visits to gyms, pools, and leisure centres at this time of the year. These intentions show that people want to secure positive and sustainable changes to their physical, mental, and social wellbeing and it is these positive intentions that are hoped to last the full year and beyond.
Our sector’s facilities really help people to achieve their personal best and secure a positive difference in their lives. Throughout the year, the ukactive team and I will visit members across the four nations of the United Kingdom where we will hear powerful testimonies from people who have made the choice to improve their health, supported by local community facilities they trust. The driving motivation will be personal and unique, but they will find people in their local gym, pool and leisure centre on the same journey, wanting to make the improvements to their health that support their quality of life.
And what’s more, we have evidence that backs up these stories. The UK Health & Fitness Market Report 2025 showed a staggering 600 million visits to health and fitness clubs across the UK in the previous year. This was followed by Sport England’s Moving Communities Facilities Impact Report in November that showed dramatic increases in those participating in gym and fitness activities, particularly among women, people under 16, over 65s, and people living in communities with the highest levels of deprivation. There is no other part of the sport, recreation, and physical activity sector that supports communities on the size and scale that our industry does, and these facilities are providing essential services for all – reducing inequalities in the communities they serve.
As people across the nation look to kickstart the year with a positive change, the Government is seeking to do the same. According to The Sunday Times last month, the Government wants people to “begin to feel progress in 2026 not in theory, in speeches, but in their lives”. It also stated the Government wants 2026 to be the year “the country starts to feel the difference, in bills, in public services, in the places they call home…This is the year Britain turns a corner”.
This ambition would be something we’d all welcome after many years of challenge and strife in almost all aspects of life. That said, what would that Government difference feel like to the sport and physical activity sector, and the fitness and leisure services that form such a major part of it?
To start with, many in the sector will indeed feel a difference in their bills, but this will be a negative one. The reality is the last two consecutive Budgets have hit businesses hard – from business rates to NICs – which mean operational pressures remain acute with both the facilities and consumers, facing rising costs, and ultimately losing out.
And let’s not forget about health prevention and what can be done to leverage our sector to take more pressure off the NHS and help people get back into work. Here, the Government has one major problem: there is not a single political individual at the top of Government who has a strong enough grasp on the role sport and physical activity can play in the preventative agenda. As a result, we see missed opportunities with broad generalisations on the role of sport and physical activity in strategies like the NHS 10 Year Plan and the Men’s Health Strategy, through to campaigns that are conceived in Whitehall and die in Whitehall as they lack all operational reality that our members face day in and day out.
The good news is this is all rectifiable. It starts with the Government taking up the offer made by the CEOs of the biggest drivers of physical activity in the country to help them deliver their ideas on prevention. If they do this there is the opportunity to create credible campaigns on physical activity and movement, and credible plans for leveraging the sector to help a range of issues from mental health to musculoskeletal issues, falls prevention, and obesity. You can also begin credible discussions on how to leverage tax and regulation to incentivise people to be more active.
The Government has the opportunity in 2026 to embrace contemporary sector thinking on the role of sport and physical activity in the society it wants to create, understanding and supporting the levers that will secure further sector growth and development, and in doing so help economic growth and take pressure off the NHS. If it does this, then 2026 could indeed be a year of delivery.
