Part
01
of one
Part
01
What is the size of the personal training market and what is its demographic?
Hi! Thanks for your question about market sizing and demographic info for personal training. Here's the short version: the fitness instruction market is valued at around $27 billion, and personal trainer wages can vary from $17-$19/hour all the way up to $65/hour. IbisWorld's market research and several professional organizations for personal trainers were instrumental in putting together this response. Read on for my deep dive!
OVERVIEW
To get an idea of the total market size for personal and fitness training services, I used IbisWorld's market sizing for three different areas: Personal Trainers, Sports Coaching, and Pilates/Yoga Studios. The full reports are behind a paywall, but the basic version gives some general figures for revenue and growth. That gave me a more well-rounded idea of the total market size for fitness instruction, both affiliated and not affiliated with gyms.
Many of the statistics I found for personal trainers do include those trainers that aren't employed by a gym; the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, for instance, mentions that their stats include "self-employed" trainers, and I found salary statistics for both gym-employed and self-employed trainers. Unfortunately, the only statistics I could find for sessions per week and a few other demographic stats were from gym-focused resources.
MARKET SIZING
According to IbisWorld, the Personal Training industry brought in $9 billion US in revenue with an annual growth rate of 3.2% between 2011 and 2016. Just under half of that revenue comes from trainers "working at fitness centers, including fitness-only health clubs, multipurpose health clubs, personal training gyms, yoga studios, Pilates studios and group exercise studios." That means that self-employed personal trainers account for over 50% of the revenue in this space.
Sports coaching is a little smaller, with only $8 billion in annual revenue and a 3% annual growth rate. This market includes services from "one-on-one coaching to group instruction in a variety of sports."
Pilates and yoga studios that aren't affiliated with fitness centers enjoy a very strong market -- they brought in $10 billion in 2016, and their growth rate is a healthy 9.2%. That growth is expected to level off in the next few years, leading to an average 10-year growth rate of just over 4% between 2011 and 2021.
Adding these market sizes together can give us a general estimate of the overall market size for personal and fitness training. Based on IbisWorld's statistics, the market size for general personal training services is $27 billion dollars.
STATS & DEMOGRAPHICS
In general, fitness trainers can expect to make between $17 and $19 per hour. Pay ranges can vary widely, however, based on experience, certifications, geographic location, and more. Gym-employed personal trainers average between $10 and $49 an hour, but self-employed trainers average a higher rate -- $35 to $65 an hour or even more.
Young adults between the ages of 25 and 34 are most likely to use personal training services. They're followed by younger (ages 6-12) children, then by older adults (35-44), who made up 19% of personal training clients at fitness clubs in 2014.
According to a 2014 National Institutes of Health survey of both gym-employed and self-employed trainers, personal trainers teach an average of 50.6 clients per week. They average 7.8 people per session, which means the average personal trainer taught 6.5 sessions per week during the survey time frame.
Geographically, large cities in general host the most personal trainers. New York City, for example, has over 10,000 trainers. Cities in the southern half of America seem to be more popular with trainers, though -- Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Miami, and Phoenix all have large numbers of trainers who earn rates in the upper end of the national average.
Bodyweight training and group classes like cycling are among the most popular trends in personal training. Fitness industry experts expect high intensity interval training to grow in popularity as well. By revenue and growth, yoga and Pilates are by far the most popular -- yoga/Pilates classes are included in gym-focused personal training revenue statistics, and non-gym-affiliated yoga and Pilates studios had higher revenue and growth than either personal training or sports coaching.
PERSONAL TRAINER MARKETING
The most important thing for trainers to remember in marketing is that they're really marketing themselves. Fitness industry blogs recommend having a strong personal biography that clients can access. The bio can "increase the number of serious candidates, while decreasing the number of prospects that may not find that your style of training right for them or their end goals."
That bio can accompany a fitness-focused Instagram account. Instagram is becoming a key tool for personal trainers to market themselves -- posting before/after photos of clients, using fitness hashtags, and building an overall social media brand can help take a personal training business to the next level. Email newsletters and blog posts can also help market a trainer's business; a strong web presence is basically a necessity these days. Free sessions and consultations are an old standby and still come recommended by industry sources.
CONCLUSION
The overall market size for fitness instruction including personal training services, sports coaching, and yoga studios is around $27 billion annually. Overall, the market shows strong potential for growth. Fitness trainer wages can vary, but generally fall between $17 and $19/hour -- self-employed trainers are more likely to fall on the higher end of the scale, often averaging between $35 and $65/hour.
By revenue and growth, yoga is by far the most popular form of training. Other popular forms include group cycling and weight training classes, as well as bodyweight-focused training and HIIT exercise. Independent trainers can use social media and internet marketing strategies to build their brands and reach a following.
Thanks for using Wonder! Please let us know if there's anything else we can do to help.