Is COVID Set to Reshape the Health and Fitness Industry?
Students have revealed that one of the main reasons they want to become a personal trainer stems from a wish to be their own boss. While expectations have always been for newly graduated personal trainers to find employment in gyms and fitness centres, the shift to self-employment is a growing trend in the personal training industry.
The insights have come after a survey carried out by The Fitness Group, one of the UK’s leading providers of personal training courses. The survey revealed some surprises, not least of which was that the long-term goal of just under half (42.3%) of the students was to “be a personal trainer and be my own boss”. Only 10.6% of the current students training to be personal trainers have ambitions of working for someone else.
Steve Dick, one of the directors of The Fitness Group, believes that the shift is due to the far-reaching effects of COVID. “While self-employment has always been a popular option for our graduates, this is the first time that we’ve seen so many students that have that as their primary goal.” He says that when COVID closed down gyms and fitness centres in the UK, many personal trainers had little choice but to move their classes online.
Even now, with gyms reopened, the people hiring personal trainers are looking for a more hybrid approach to their sessions. Steve said, “I think our graduates have seen that self-employment is a lot more accessible these days, and that there’s a lot of demand for personal trainers.”
Student Optimism
Also revealed in the survey is the optimism that the students have about their future careers once they graduate. When asked what they’re most looking forward to once they graduate, just over half (50.5%) said that they were most looking forward to “working doing something I enjoy, every day.”
The Return of the Fitness Industry
The health and fitness industry is thriving once again. The billion-pound industry is attracting more people than ever, and becoming a personal trainer is one of the most popular career choices for those interested in healthy living and helping other people. As one of the students at The Fitness Group said in the survey, “If you have the passion for using sport as a means of helping others, and you are willing to put in the hard work, then go for it and never stop learning. You won’t look back.”
Self Employment and COVID
It’s clear that the global pandemic initially hit the self-employed extremely hard. Throughout the stress of the last couple of years, many of those in self-employment made the difficult decision to find work as employees. The need for financial security was clearly a driver of that trend.
While the numbers of self-employed people in the UK has yet to climb back up to pre-COVID levels, it’s clear from these survey results from the students at The Fitness Group that self-employment is still an attractive career option.
In 2020, economists were startled by the rise in the number of people making the move to self-employment. As the UK economy slowly drags itself back to pre-pandemic numbers, will self-employment also return to that level of growth? For personal trainers, the answer seems like a resounding yes.
Author Bio – Steven Dick
Steven Dick is one of the directors of The Fitness Group, a UK-based brand that specialises in teaching people to become personal trainers. Now, thousands of students graduate from The Fitness Group every year and go on to build successful careers in the health and fitness sector.
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