Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Active Lives Survey (ALS) commenced in November 2015. It replaces the Active People Survey, which ran from 2005 to 2015. The survey provides the largest sample size ever established for a sport and recreation survey and allows levels of detailed analysis previously unavailable. It identifies how participation varies from place to place, across different sports, and between different groups in the population. The survey also measures levels of activity (active, fairly active and inactive), the proportion of the adult population that volunteer in sports on a weekly basis, club membership, sports spectating and wellbeing measures such as happiness and anxiety, etc. The questionnaire was designed to enable analysis of the findings by a broad range of demographic information, such as gender, social class, ethnicity, household structure, age, and disability.

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic developed rapidly during 2020 and 2021. Fieldwork for the Active Lives survey continued throughout the pandemic, which covered periods Nov 2019-20 and Nov 2020-21. The data from Nov 2021-22 onwards covers periods without any coronavirus restrictions. 

More general information about the study can be found on the Sport England Active Lives Survey webpage and the Active Lives Online website, including reports and data tables.

Latest edition information

For the second edition (February 2025), the data file was resupplied, with updated County Sports Partnership (CSP_2025) and inequalities metric (equalities_metric_2024_GR4) variables included.

Topics covered in the Active Lives Survey include:

• Sport and physical activity
• Health behaviour
• General health and wellbeing
• Sports volunteering
• Sport spectating
• Club membership