SkillsActive is the Sector Skills Council for Active Leisure and Learning which and includes five industries:

• sport and recreation
• health and fitness
• playwork
• the outdoors
• caravan indsutry

In the UK, there are 576,000 people in paid employment in the sector, accounting for almost 2% of the UK workforce, across 230,708 public, private and voluntary organisations.  There are also an estimated 5 million volunteers working in the sector.

It is forecast that by 2014, employment levels in England will have increased by 100,000, an increase of 21%.  The sector will also have to recruit 85,000 annually to cope with replacement demand.

The regions with high levels of employment in the Active Leisure and Learning sector include: South East (73,500); Scotland (52,800); North West (49,900); and London (48,800).  The majority of employers across the regions expect employment levels to increase in the future.  The North East with 20,900 employees has the smallest sector workforce in the UK.

The diversity of the sector means that it contains a vast range of occupations; everything from personal trainers to activity leaders and play assistants to leisure centre managers.

There is some evidence of skills shortages and likely future trends include the need for higher levels of management and business skills together with greater customer service and communication skills.

The SkillsActive workforce has a high proportion of women and young people (aged 16 -24).  This is however misleading as few people under 18 years will be employed because of regulatory requirements.  The workforce is predominantly drawn from white ethnic groups (95%).

One in five (18%) of the 81,000 higher education applications onto SkillsActive courses were accepted.  There are a wide range of further education college-based courses in areas such as sport science and fitness instruction as well as general courses in each of the Active Leisure and Learning industries.  83% of students are aged under 25 years.

There is much academic interest in a wide range of sport-related issues.  Some of the current research focuses on:

• professionalism and continuing professional development
• promoting the professional athlete
• governmental policy and legislation
• dimensions of equal opportunity