Key findings

  • Nearly two-thirds of Brits exercise for at least an hour a week, and 35% exceed three hours.
  • Walking is the most common activity, with 76% of adults taking part.
  • Gender differences emerge, with men more likely to weight train or play team sports, while women favour yoga, swimming and fitness classes.

As the year draws to a close, a period often associated with renewed interest in health and fitness, new data from the YouGov Health & Wellbeing Tracker 2025 offers a snapshot of how Brits exercise.

The types of activities Brits choose

Walking is by far the most common way adults in the UK stay active, with 76% reporting that they use it for exercise.

Beyond walking, participation is spread across a wide mix of activities: 20% take part in gym workouts and 19% in weight training, while 17% go running or jogging. Activities such as yoga or Pilates (14%), swimming (13%) and cycling (12%) attract slightly smaller but still substantial portions of the population. More structured group options draw fewer participants overall, with 9% attending fitness classes and 5% taking part in team sports. Only 3% of adults say they engage in none of the listed activities, indicating that the vast majority take part in at least one form of physical exercise.

Men are more likely than women to participate in gym workouts (22% vs 18%), weight training (23% vs 16%), running or jogging (21% vs 14%), cycling (19% vs 6%) and team sports (9% vs 3%). Women, meanwhile, are more likely to take part in yoga or Pilates (20% vs 6%), swimming (15% vs 10%) and fitness classes such as aerobics or spinning (13% vs 5%). Walking is the only activity with near-universal engagement across genders, though women participate at slightly higher levels (78% vs 73%).

How much time Brits spend being active

The findings show that most adults dedicate regular time each week to physical activity of some kind, whether it’s walking, swimming or team sports.

  • 11% spend less than 30 minutes a week exercising.
  • 23% spend 30 minutes to an hour.
  • 29% fit in 1 to 3 hours.
  • 35% exceed 3 hours of activity per week.

Men and women show broadly similar patterns, though men are slightly more represented in the “more than 3 hours” group (37%) while women edge ahead in the 1–3 hour range (32%).

Methodology: 

Data is drawn from a YouGov survey conducted between 22nd – 30th August 2025 – this is the first of a 4-wave tracker to be conducted quarterly over a 12-month period.

YouGov interviewed a nationally representative sample of 1,993 UK 18+ adults, and an additional sample of 490 past users of cosmetic treatment(s) (a range of 14 cosmetic treatments were prompted, including weight loss injections and non-injectable weight loss drugs) weighted on age and gender to reflect the profile of cosmetic treatment users in the nat rep sample.

Image: Getty Images

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