Following the launch of the UK Health & Fitness Market Report 2025, a new blog series shares the views of leaders across the industry on the growth of the sector and what the report means for their organisation. In the third blog, we hear from Will Orr, CEO of The Gym Group.
The findings from The UK Health and Fitness Market Report 2025 were hugely encouraging for the sector, showing growing membership and revenue primarily driven by younger generations. There is growing engagement with fitness across all age groups, but particularly with younger gym goers, who are increasingly seeing gym memberships as a non-negotiable.
For us at The Gym Group, the report reaffirmed the importance of Gen Z to the sector’s growth and helped us to further understand their behaviours in order to better deliver for this generation. Whilst there continues to be increasing demand for low-cost fitness and macro tailwinds contributing to the sector’s long-term growth potential, members are expecting great value from their gym memberships and it’s essential that we continue to innovate the high value, low-cost offering in order support young people in sustaining long term healthy habits.
The report highlights the increased integration of technology and ‘data-driven insights’ into the fitness journey, which is another key area for us, and continuing to enhance member experience across web, app, social, and gym.
In September, we enter a new ‘Fitness New Year’ and will see many people returning to their routines after the summer. Gen Z will likely make up a large part of these visits being around 40% of our total 900,000+ membership base. Aligning with this fresh start, this week we published our inaugural Gen Z Fitness Pulse Report 2025 to uncover more around this generation’s exercise habits and attitudes to fitness.
Similarly to the findings from The UK Health and Fitness Market Report, our research is incredibly encouraging, and shows us that exercise is at the core of Gen Z’s sense of wellbeing and lifestyle. For this generation it is not only about improving fitness, but also protecting and improving mental health and building social connections.
Gen Z are increasingly prioritising their time and money on fitness and the popularity of exercise continues to rise among Gen Z, with nearly three-quarters (73%) saying they exercise at least twice per week. The increasing importance of exercise in Gen Z’s lives is reflected in their spending habits with more than a quarter (26%) of respondents ranking fitness as their top discretionary spending priority, ahead of spending on streaming services, and dining or drinking out. And despite reports that Gen Z feel financially squeezed*, average monthly spend on fitness has increased by 17% year-on-year to £48.81 per month.
Our report further reveals the central role mental health plays in Gen Z’s approach to exercise with the vast majority saying working out improves or significantly improves their mental wellbeing.
The findings from both the UK Health and Fitness Market Report and our own Gen Z Fitness Pulse Report paints a clear picture: this is a generation that truly prioritises fitness, viewing it as a fundamental part of their lifestyle and there’s great opportunity here for the whole sector if we adapt to meet Gen Z where they are.
To read the report, the UK Health & Fitness Market Report 2025, click here.
