The Datum Report

Occupation 3433 · Associate professional occupations

Fitness and wellbeing instructors

Half of full-time fitness and wellbeing instructors in the UK earn more than £27,273 a year, and half earn less.

Fitness and wellbeing instructors deliver training in a range of fitness activities, including weight training, yoga, Pilates, personal training and other forms of exercise at private health and fitness centres, local authority run sports and leisure centres, other public and community establishments, and in private homes.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic requirements. Entrants must, however, possess coaching qualifications recognised by the appropriate governing body. Applicants to coaching courses must normally be over 18 years old and hold a first-aid certificate. Background checks including a DBS check are required for those working with children.

What the work involves

• assesses the fitness levels of clients
• devises programmes of training appropriate to the needs of clients with varying levels of strength, fitness and ability
• demonstrates and leads fitness activities and supervises exercise classes
• ensures that clients do not injure themselves through over exertion or using incorrect training techniques
• plans and monitors personal fitness schedules
• understands the health and safety aspects of different forms of exercise and ensures that any statutory requirements are met

Also called

Aerobics instructor · Fitness instructor · Gym instructor · Lifestyle consultant · Personal trainer · Pilates instructor · Yoga teacher

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for fitness and wellbeing instructors, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 3 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Sports coaches, instructors and officials · Sports players