As England's capital city, London offers many leisure activities to entertain the quickly bored Londoner. Sport is not the exception, with sports clubs, classes and gyms found almost everywhere and catering to all budgets and lifestyles. Over recent years, the fitness landscape has evolved significantly with Londoners embracing both traditional and innovative approaches to staying active. So if you are a sports fan, you will certainly not be disappointed with London. Whatever your sport of preference, you can find a place to practise it or watch it. Â
London provides public and private sports facilities: fees vary and all registrations are easy to complete. If you are on a budget, there are several parks and green fitness trails across the city to play sports, jog and practise yoga or martial arts. You will also see many Londoners jogging along the riverbank, cycling through dedicated lanes and participating in outdoor bootcamp-style classes.
Popular sports in London
Football remains a favourite sport but this is unsurprising given the city is home to 16 professional football teams and more than 75 amateur teams.
If you prefer to watch the sport, there are many stadiums across the city - including Arsenal FC and Tottenham Hotspur FC. Several pubs and bars across the city livestream matches if you don't want to venture out to a stadium.
Another popular thing to do is going to the gym, with gym membership continuing to be popular among Londoners (and often a company perk offered by employees in the city).
London gyms are popular because they come in all price ranges, are near your home and often serve as a place of social interaction. They're where many people take classes with friends or join to meet people from their neighbourhood. Gym memberships in London range from £13.99 to over £200 per month, depending on location, facilities and membership types.
A standard gym membership at The Gym Group London Monument, for example, starts from £30.99 per month, plus a £15 joining fee. For many, London comes with a hectic lifestyle, and the gym is a stress buster, as well as a refuge from the hustle and bustle of the busy city streets.
Beyond the usual activities like football and the gym, however, 2025 has seen a surge in interest in a variety of other , including:
- Strength training: Weight training was the fastest-growing sport type among women in 2024;
- Micro workouts: Short, efficient 20-minute sessions fitting busy London lifestyles;
- Mindful movement: Combining traditional exercise with meditation and wellness;
- Outdoor fitness: Group fitness classes in parks and open spaces;
- Adventure workouts: Combining fitness with outdoor exploration.
With that said, traditional activities continue to be popular, including swimming, tennis/squash/badminton courts, rugby clubs, athletic clubs, martial arts, gymnastics and indoor cycling facilities.
Moreover, yoga, Zumba, pilates, kickboxing and marathon running continue to thrive alongside newer trends like reformer pilates and high-intensity interval training (HIIT).
Good to know:
Read your gym contract terms carefully. Some gyms may ask you to sign up for a year and have stringent get-out clauses. Modern gyms increasingly offer rollover contracts that allow you to cancel your subscription for the next month or even put it on pause if you are not going regularly. Many clubs now offer unlimited classes included in membership, particularly for popular activities like Reformer Pilates.
Digital fitness integration in London
This isn't London-specific, but applies to many gyms and fitness venues across England. Technology has been fully embraced by many companies and offers convenience to their customers with things like:
- Digital payment and booking with contactless payments, app-based class booking and cancellation systems and real-time availability tracking for classes;
- Flexible membership models like Class-Pass style credit systems, pay-per-class options and hybrid memberships;
- Wearable technology (like smart watches) is popular and can be integrated with fitness tracking apps - virtual coaching and personal training options are also popular with companies like Pelaton.
Outdoor and adventure fitness boom in London
As mentioned above, London's fitness scene has embraced the outdoors like never before. Among the most popular forms of outdoor exercise are hiking, cycling, jogging and Bootcamp-style group fitness classes.
Many fitness providers now offer outdoor extensions where members can train in parks, along the Thames, or in purpose-built outdoor gym spaces.
Popular outdoor activities include park bootcamps, cycling, running clubs, outdoor yoga and adventure races.
Good to know:
Many outdoor fitness classes operate year-round, with providers offering seasonal adaptations. Winter classes often focus on high-intensity movements to keep participants warm, while summer sessions may incorporate more stretching and mindfulness elements.
Public and private sports facilities in London
There are many public council-run sports facilities throughout Greater London. The variety of public facilities available depends on where you live. Each council area will have a swimming pool, sporting grounds and courts as a minimum.
Many councils provide gym services and sporting classes for all ages. You can find the sports facilities available in your area by researching your council and going to the sports section of their official website.
Public sporting facilities also have reduced rates for young people, students, unemployed people, benefit seekers and pensioners.
Private facilities are more expensive but offer higher quality and more choice. Very particular or rare sports tend to be run by private institutions. It is also rare that they offer discounts for sports facilities in London to individual members of the population. University sports facilities in London are available for students at a much cheaper rate than other places. There are also many youth sports clubs across London at all levels and budgets.
Useful links:
We do our best to provide accurate and up to date information. However, if you have noticed any inaccuracies in this article, please let us know in the comments section below.
