Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Taking Part survey collects data on many aspects of leisure, culture and sport in England, as well as an in-depth range of socio-demographic information on respondents. The survey is commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in partnership with three of its non-departmental public bodies (Sport England, Arts Council England and English Heritage). The survey was first commissioned in 2005 as a face-to-face household survey of adults (16+) in England. Since then it has run annually and has also been developed to include further elements, including a child element and a longitudinal element.

Further information can be found on the Gov.uk Taking Part web pages.


For Taking Part, 2014-2015, also known as Year 10 of the continuous survey, a child boost was included, which has increased the number of 11-15 year olds asked about sports participation. Adult and child longitudinal datasets and accompanying documentation are also available.


Main Topics:

Main topics covered by the survey include: the arts, museums and galleries, libraries, archives, heritage, sport, World War I, the Olympics, volunteering, charitable giving and demographics. These topics appear in the main adult and child datasets, and in the adult longitudinal dataset. The Child Boost dataset only contains questions on sports participation.

In order to preserve confidentiality, variables relating to census output area, postcode sector, local authority, and primary sampling units have been removed from the UK Data Archive End User Licence version. A Special Licence version that contains more detailed data, including some of the variables listed above and detailed geographical variables (Local Authorities, ACORN Group, ACORN Category and ONS Urban Rural Classification), is available under SN 7873.