The Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK health and fitness clubs has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK health and fitness clubs perform across the digital space.

The latest Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK health and fitness clubs has just been published. It covers the 12 largest clubs in the UK, including Virgin Active, The Gym Group, énergie Fitness,LivingWell Health Clubs, TotalFitness, Anytime Fitness, The Bannatyne Group, JDGyms, David Lloyd, Snap Fitness 24/7, PureGym, and Fitness First.

The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice online and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for other health and fitness clubs to win brand exposure, drive online views, and increase membership figures. The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and identifies the barriers that may be reducing your site’s ability to optimise digital performance.

To see a preview and contents page of the Q1 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q1 2026 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just six of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 health and fitness clubs on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK health and fitness clubs or request a copy of the report for the full review.

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What The Industry Research Report Covers

The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each brand based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.  

Driving Optimal ROAS from Paid Media Channels

Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing and Facebook - but have a poor or sub-optimal conversion improvement strategy. Without an optimised, sophisticated conversion strategy that maximises the conversion rate, the return on investment is unsustainable or will underperform. Scaling spend on paid media is not achievable unless the conversion rate delivers optimal performance in the sector. Some in the space have paid media spend levels from £30k+ per month but dedicate minimal resources and budgets to conversion testing.  Given the cost per clicks on ad networks will continue to rise, we recommend spending at least 10% of your paid media budget on ongoing conversion optimisation testing schedules to ensure your paid media ROI maintains long-term viability, competitive advantage, and sustainability.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Pay-Per-Click marketing is constantly evolving, with more and more advertisers being forced to hand over a lot of control to Google's algorithms as the push for automation grows ever stronger. There are still key elements of control that we have though, the main one of these being budget which is ultimately something the algorithms can't take from you. That's why being smart with your budget and ad coverage is essential to achieving strong results and bettering what your competitors have to offer.

ForQ1 2026, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK health and fitness clubs was £12,175 with some of the top players in the market spending a considerable amount on areas and audiences unlikely to deliver a return. We can see this in more detail when looking at the average monthly cost per cost-per-click (CPC) amongst advertisers, with the average of this metric being £8. This highlights how competitive the market is and how important it is to control your budgets effectively.

There are varying monthly ad budgets across the competitors in the report. While this gap highlights the competitive advantage that larger budgets can provide, it's not just about spending more; it’s about spending smarter. By focusing on driving efficiency in campaign management, targeting, and budget allocation, businesses with smaller budgets can still effectively compete with larger players. Investing in data-driven strategies and refining ad performance can help close the gap and maximise the return on every pound spent, enabling growth even in a competitive landscape. Relative to their spend, Anytime Fitness, Fitness First, and David Lloyd reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £0, and énergie Fitness has the highest at £39. 

The report highlights the importance of budget efficiency by comparing monthly ad spend with estimated CPC in relation to your competitors, see who has the highest and lowest CPC. To maximise the effectiveness of your budget, it’s essential to focus on driving CPC down while maintaining or improving campaign performance. In this report, Total Fitness has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £434, and PureGym has the highest at £761,000.

By optimising targeting, refining ad copy, and leveraging data to identify high-converting opportunities, you can ensure every click delivers maximum value. This approach not only stretches your budget further but also boosts your return on ad spend (ROAS), enabling you to achieve stronger results without simply increasing expenditure.

Technical Website Compliance

Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. Health and fitness clubs have the benefit of not needing to maintain an ever-changing array of stock, so it should be relatively straightforward for these brands to avoid large volumes of 4xx errors.

In our previous audit, The Bannatyne Group received the most 404 errors(188). This quarter, The Bannatyne Group has reduced their 404 errors to 4,no longer making them the company to watch. Currently, the health and fitness club with the most 404 errors is Fitness First, reporting a total of 35. 404errors can increase bounce rates and reduce user engagement, which indirectly affects SEO. When users land on broken pages, they often leave the site immediately, signalling poor user experience. While bounce rate itself is not a direct ranking factor, poor engagement metrics can correlate with lower trust, weaker performance signals, and reduced long-term organic growth.

Site Speed & Conversion Rate Performance

When 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load will see a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. Health and fitness clubs must ensure they are primed and ready for an increasingly mobile-first audience and are serving quick, easy to use mobile sites.

In our previous audit, TotalFitness received the slowest mobile site speed (21). This quarter, TotalFitness has increased their mobile site speed to 37, moving them up the leaderboard. Currently, the mobile site speed ranges between 61 and 28, with David Lloyd lagging the slowest speed. Mobile speed supports long-term SEO and technical health. Websites that prioritise performance are easier to crawl, index, and maintain, reducing technical issues over time. This creates a more stable foundation for sustainable organic growth and digital scalability.

Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority

Domain authority (DA) is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance and helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. Health and fitness clubs may want to collaborate with fitness publications and bloggers within the health niche, to expand their backlink profile and increase levels of relevant referral traffic.

A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it is generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. énergie Fitness reported the lowest DA score (42). Domain authority supports better performance across competitive keywords. In highly saturated markets, authority can be the deciding factor between ranking on page one or being buried in lower results. Websites with strong authority can compete for high-value search terms that directly drive revenue and business growth.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for core, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. Due to the cost of living crisis, consumers may be cutting back on small luxuries such as gym memberships, and opting for at-home workout options or a membership at a cheaper club. Health and fitness clubs should be mindful that they are optimising and ranking for relevant terms, depending on current events and topics, in order to maintain traffic.

Eight brands reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with énergie Fitness receiving the biggest loss (-35%). On mobile, four brands reported a drop in organic traffic, with Fitness First reporting the biggest drop (-19%). Mobile site speed has a stronger impact on user behaviour than desktop speed. Slower mobile performance increases bounce rates and abandonment, reducing organic traffic growth. Brands that fail to optimise mobile performance often see traffic imbalances between devices as a result.

Universal Search Opportunity

Google Universal Search Results are an evolving opportunity to make your pages visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. Universal search results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, and a site can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. Health and fitness clubs may find any of the Universal Search opportunities useful for sharing information and building brand awareness directly from the SERP. Results such as 'FAQs' and 'people also ask' questions will provide an opportunity to share knowledge of exercise and build authority, while 'local pack' will improve visibility in local areas.

PureGym continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (74,342) — an increase from 35,801 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘images’ (51,100).

The Longtail Keyword Opportunity

Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Health and fitness clubs can either look at developing content giving specific exercise advice, which will help funnel users from the brand awareness to consideration stage, or focus on building visibility around high-conversion-intent keywords, that may mention terms such as fees.

PureGym continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (13,694) — an increase from 11,670 previously. PureGym also secured the most appearances for positions 4–10 (18,511) — an increase from 16,701 previously. Longtail keyword strategies reduce dependency on paid advertising. As organic visibility grows through targeted queries, websites can rely less on paid traffic for conversions and lead generation. This lowers acquisition costs and improves marketing efficiency.

Facebook Adverts

With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 44 million users in 2023, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019. For UK health and fitness clubs, Facebook ads are an opportunity to reach more customers and share updates to their facilities.

We’ve included screenshots of Fitness First’s sponsored Facebook posts. This health and fitness club should reduce the number of lines of text to improve engagement rates. Strong hooks in the opening line are essential for engagement. A clear benefit, relatable pain point, or intriguing question immediately captures attention as users scroll.

Top Social Shares & Content

When it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release content that has a longer shelf life. An article is considered 'evergreen' if it has maintained its relevancy to an audience for a long period of time. It's great for your engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content that achieves traffic over a long period of time. Health and fitness clubs with a strong blog presence are likely to see more engagement from social media, with users keen to improve their technique or even copy some exercises at home.

PureGym secured the most Facebook Likes (554,100) and the most Instagram followers (237,100). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Snap Fitness 24/7 received the highest total engagement rate (38,496) and the highest average engagement (769).

Website Readability & Accessibility

About 20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. Health and fitness brands will want to carefully consider the impression they are giving users, from the first digital touchpoint. Prospective members who have a vision deficiency, or other additional needs, will need to know that they will be welcomed and supported in accessing facilities, beginning with the health and fitness club's website.

In our previous report, TotalFitness flagged the most contrast errors (50). This quarter, TotalFitness reported 49 contrast errors — a reduction of one point. Brands can improve contrast by choosing readable colour combinations, using larger font sizes, and avoiding overlaying text on busy backgrounds. Regular accessibility audits and updates also help identify and correct contrast issues as new content is added, keeping the website inclusive and user-friendly overtime.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q1 2026 REPORT

To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Rory Tarplee.