The health and fitness industry is focused on the supervision of exercise and physical activity – either in an individual capacity or within a group – in a controlled environment.  This can be variously described to include the provision of facilities to encourage and promote physical activity and the general concept of promoting ‘wellness’.  There are a significant number of public leisure centres which also provide a fitness facility often within multi-sport facilities, plus there are facilities within educational establishments.  The industry falls within the following Standard Industrial Classifications (SICs):

• 9304 Physical well-being activities
• 9261 Operation of sports arenas and stadia
• 9262 Other sporting activities
• 9272 Other recreational activities n.e.c.
• 8042 Adult and other education n.e.c.

The health and fitness industry gross value added (GVA) was £650 million in 2004, which is 0.1% of the whole UK output and 7.5% of the SkillsActive output.  Output in the industry is expected to slow with an annual growth rate of 4.3% over the next ten years, but it will significantly outperform that of both the Active Leisure and Learning sector and the whole UK economy.

UK employment in the industry accounts for 8% of the Active Leisure and Learning sector, with a total of almost 45,000 people in around 3,200 workplaces.  Industry employment is concentrated in the South East (17%), but the industry is growing fastest in Scotland.  Over the next 10 years, employment levels are expected to increase and forecast replacement demands will be 7,000 annually between 2005-2009.

Similar to the Active Leisure and Learning sector average, 42% of the industry workforce is employed full-time, 45% part-time and 13% self-employed.

The industry has a high turnover rate, partly attributed to, entrants having high expectations about the work which are not met.  New entrants and staff often lack experience so start in lower level roles and face low pay, shift work and limited career pathways.

Associate professional and technical, personal service and elementary occupations are more important to health and fitness than the economy as a whole.  21% of the health and fitness workforce are employed in personal service, which is significantly larger than for the whole economy.  Elementary personal service occupations are more than double that found in the UK workforce.

The workforce is predominantly female (54% female).  The majority of occupations are biased to women, particularly exercise to music instructors who are 88% female. The dominance of women in the industry is likely to increase in the future.  The industry has a much younger age profile than in the economy as a whole.  Ethnic minorities are under-represented in the industry: 95.4% of employees are white compared to 93% in the whole economy.

31% of the workforce hold no or Level 1 qualifications, but 70% believe that technical and practical skills are important to their job.  23% of the workforce has Level 4 or 5 qualifications, which is lower than the whole economy (29%).

22% of employers in the health and fitness industry have reported vacancies, of which  9% are hard-to-fill. Vacancies are the result of low number of applicants with the required skills.  41% of employers have one skills shortage vacancy.  Skills deficiencies are reported for team working, communication, technical and practical and customer handling skills.

Key drivers in the industry:

• customer attitudes and expectations
• increase in customers with more leisure time who are better informed and expect value for money
• government policy increasing participation in sport and preventative healthcare
• the introduction of customer relationship management  (CRM)
• increase in the number of public-private investment or partnerships
• the success of the Register of Exercise Professionals driving quality training and standards of conduct

Communication skills are the most important skill for the industry, whilst little importance is given to foreign language skills.  Team working, health and safety knowledge and customer service skills are also of importance.  Employers have reported that those working in the industry must be self-motivated and reliable.

Key priorities in the industry are to: increase attractiveness of the industry; develop career pathways; encourage professionalism and up-skilling; sustainable funding for training; and increase the diversity of the workforce.

Source: Skills Needs Assessment – England 2005 and Skills Needs Assessment – Health and Fitness 2005

Keywords
Gross value added (GVA) is the difference between the value of goods and services produced and the cost of raw materials and other inputs which are used up in production.

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For employment levels by region and nation see: