Active Lives

Overview

Measuring the nation's activity levels

We run two surveys: Active Lives Adult, which is published twice a year and replaced our Active People Survey, and the world-leading Active Lives Children and Young People, which is published annually.

Both give a unique and comprehensive view of how people are getting active.

Our most recent reports are available to download below, while a summary of the findings of our latest Adult report can be read here. You can also explore and filter the data yourself using our Active Lives Online tool.

A summary of our Children and Young People report can be found here.

You can download the latest surveys using the links below:

Active Lives Adult Survey November 2019-20 Report

Download the file - 5.08 MB

Active Lives Children Survey Academic Year 2019-20 Report

Download the file - 2.78 MB

Active Lives Children Survey Academic Year 2019-20 Coronavirus Report

Download the file - 1.85 MB

Adult survey

Levels of activity
We measure activity based on the number of moderate intensity equivalent minutes, whereby each ‘moderate’ minute of activity counts as one minute and each 'vigorous' minute of activity counts as two moderate minutes. Read more
Moderate activity is defined as activity where you raise your breathing rate, and vigorous activity is where you’re out of breath or are sweating.

The Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines for adults recommend doing 150 minutes or more of moderate intensity equivalent a week.

As a result, we present activity data for three groups.
- Active - doing at least 150 minutes a week
- Fairly active - doing 30-149 minutes a week
- Inactive - doing fewer than 30 minutes a week
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Types of activity
Activities are broken down into broad groups (i.e. sporting activities), activity groups (i.e. team sports), activities (i.e. football) and disciplines (i.e. walking football). Read more
Participation is reported for those who have taken part at least twice in the last 28 days. This gives us:
- An entry-level view of participation overall
- A useful measure of engagement in different sports and physical activity
- An understanding of the contribution of activities achieving 150+ minutes per week.
Twice in the last 28 days is defined as the equivalent of 30 minutes’ activity at least twice in the last 28 days. Each session must last at least 10 minutes and be of at least moderate intensity. An individual can reach the minimum threshold by a combination of two 30-minute sessions across the last 28 days or by six 10-minute sessions, for example.
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Volunteering to support sport and physical activity
We count a person as having volunteered if they’ve taken part in a volunteering role to support sport or physical activity twice in the last 12 months. Read more
Volunteering roles are defined as:
- Provided transport to help people other than family members to take part
- Coached or instructed an individual or team(s) other than solely for family members
- Refereed, umpired or officiated at a match, competition or event
- Administrative or committee role (e.g. chairperson, treasurer, social secretary, first aid officer or welfare officer)
- Stewarded or marshalled
- Provided any other help (e.g. helping with refreshments, sports kit or equipment).
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Measuring outcomes
The Active Lives Adult Survey captures data designed to better understand impact against four of the five social outcomes identified in the government’s Sporting Future strategy. Read more
For the mental wellbeing measures of life satisfaction, happiness, feeling your life is worthwhile and anxiety, we ask respondents to answer on a scale of 0-10, with responses averaged to give a mean score.

The questions asked were:
- Life satisfaction: How satisfied are you with life nowadays?
- Happiness: How happy did you feel yesterday?
- Feeling your life is worthwhile: To what extent are the things you do in your life worthwhile?
- Anxiety: I can achieve most of the goals I set myself.
For the individual development and social and community development measures, we ask respondents to rate their agreement to a statement on a five-point scale from strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1).

Responses are averaged to provide a mean score.

The questions asked were:
- Individual development: I can achieve most of the goals I set myself
- Individual development: If I find something difficult, I keep trying until I can do it
- Social and community development: Most people in your local area can be trusted.
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Sport spectating
Spectating is measured as having attended two or more live sports events, whether professional or amateur, over the previous 12 months.

A woman playing rugby.

Children and Young People survey

Levels of activity

We measure activity based on the average number of minutes of moderate intensity physical activity per day.
Read more
The Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines for young people recommend doing an average of 60 minutes of activity a day across the week, with activity being of at least moderate intensity.

As a result, we present activity data for three activity groups:
- Active – doing an average of 60 minutes or more a day
- Fairly active – doing an average of 30-59 minutes a day
- Less active – doing less than an average of 30 minutes a day.
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At and outside school
Government policy aims that children and young people should get 30 minutes of their daily physical activity through the school day and 30 minutes outside of school, with activity being of at least moderate intensity. Read more
For at-school activity, every day is five days (weekdays), for outside school, activity every day is seven days.

We present data for two categories for both inside and outside of school:
- Those who average 30 minutes or more a day
- Those who average less than 30 minutes a day
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Types of activity
Information is presented on whether or not the pupil has done a specific activity for any duration with at least moderate intensity in the last week. Activities are presented individually (e.g. cricket) and as broader groups of activities (e.g. team sports).
Volunteering to support sport and physical activity

We count a child as having volunteered if they’ve taken part in a volunteering role to support sport and physical activity at least twice in the last 12 months.
Read more

Examples of volunteering activities include being a sports leader or ambassador, coaching, refereeing, umpiring and stewarding, helping set up and clear away, helping with refreshments and any other activities which support sport and physical activity.

Activities which only help family members are not included and activities which involve sport and activity to raise money are also not included.

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Measuring outcomes
Three dimensions of mental wellbeing are measured: happiness, life satisfaction and the extent to which children and young people feel that the things they do in their life are worthwhile. Read more
The way the data is collected differs slightly between year groups.
- For Years 1-2 (ages 5-7), a smiley face question was used to measure happiness and is expressed as three categories in our data, whereby a smiley face is happy, a sad face is sad and a straight face is neither happy nor sad. This was the only outcome measured for Years 1-2 and is presented as percentages.
- For Years 3-6 (ages 7-11) the standard Office for National Statistics (ONS) ‘how happy did you feel yesterday?’ question was used. This was the only outcome measured for Years 3-6 and is presented as a mean score out of 10.
- For Years 7-11 (ages 11-16), the standard ONS questions were used for happiness, life satisfaction and feeling worthwhile (‘How happy did you feel yesterday?’; ‘How satisfied are you with life nowadays?’; ‘To what extent are the things you do in your life worthwhile?’). These are presented as mean scores out of 10.
Individual and community development was captured from Years 3-11 pupils using a question about trying difficult things (resilience) and a question about trusting peers (positive levels of social trust).

Each question is asked on a five-point scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

The questions asked were:
- Individual development: If I find something difficult, I keep trying until I can do it
- Community development: How much do you feel you can trust people who are a similar age to you?
Results are presented as a percentage of those who strongly agree.
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Swimming capability and confidence

Guidelines indicate that children should be able to swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25m by the time they leave primary school.
Read more
Data is collected through the following questions:
- Capability
1. Can swim
2. Can swim 25m unaided
3. Can tread water
4. Can swim 200m (Years 7-11 only)
5. Which strokes they can swim (Years 7-11 only)
- Confidence
1. Do you like swimming (Years 1-2)
2. Can self-rescue from a lake (Years 3-11)
3. Would like to swim more often (Years 3-11)
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Attitudes towards sport and physical activity
Asking children and young people about their attitudes towards sport and physical activity captures physical literacy. Read more
The way the data is collected differs slightly between year groups.
- For Years 1-2, three questions are asked covering the elements of enjoyment and competence
- For Years 3-6, four questions are asked covering enjoyment, confidence, competence and understanding
- For Years 7-11, the same four questions are asked as Years 3-6, with a fifth question asked to capture knowledge.
The following questions are used:
- Enjoyment (Years 1-2): I like playing sport (love, like, don’t like, hate)
- Enjoyment (Years 1-2): I like being active (love, like, don’t like, hate)
- Enjoyment (Years 3-11): I enjoy taking part in exercise and sports
- Confidence (Years 3-11): I feel confident when I exercise and play sports
- Competence (Years 1-2): I find sport easy (yes, no)
- Competence (Years 3-11): I find exercise and sport easy
- Understanding (Years 3-11): I understand why exercise and sports are good for me
- Knowledge (Years 7-11): I know how to get involved and improve my skills in lots of different types of exercise and sports.
Unless stated otherwise above, each question has a scale of strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree and results are presented as a percentage of those who strongly agree.
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Sport spectating
Spectating is measured as having attended two or more live sports events, whether professional or amateur, over the previous 12 months.

Adult survey

Scope and background
Active Lives Adult, which was established in November 2015, provides a world-leading approach to gathering data on how adults aged 16 and over in England engage with sport and physical activity. Read more

It’s carried out by leading research company IPSOS-MORI and produced by us in collaboration with Arts Council England, Public Health England and the Department for Transport.

The results will shape and influence local decision-making as well as inform government policy.

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Data collection methodology
The survey is sent out to a randomly selected sample of households across England. Two adults (aged 16+) are invited to take part by logging online and entering the password in their invite letter. There's also an option to complete a paper questionnaire which is supplied with the second of three reminders.
Sampling
The overall sample size is around 175,000 people for each survey. Our minimum annual sample size for each English local authority (excluding the City of London and Isles of Scilly) is 500, though some key areas will involve surveying a bigger number of people. Read more

The survey sample is randomly selected from the Royal Mail’s Postal Address File (generally regarded as the ‘Gold Standard’ for population surveys), which is a list of addresses in the UK that is maintained by the Royal Mail and has a very high coverage of private residential addresses.

Data is weighted to Office for National Statistics population measures for geography and key demographics.

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Survey development
The survey was developed in two phases. Phase one covered the core activity tracking questions and went live in November 2015. The second phase covered volunteering, wider outcomes and motivation questions. Read more

These questions were developed through desk research and two rounds of cognitive testing. It went live in May 2016.

The first data was published in January 2017.

The questionnaire is reviewed annually with key changes documented in the questionnaire summary.

Click here to read the questionnaire summary.

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Releasing results
Data is published in April (mid-November to mid-November full year results) and October (mid-May to mid-May interim results) each year.
The predecessor: Active People Survey
The Active Lives Adult Survey replaced the Active People Survey. Active People ran from 2005-2015 and remained largely unchanged over that period. It measured a wide range of sports and provided useful local data to a wide range of local authorities. Nevertheless, it needed to change. Read more

Active People was a landline telephone survey and, as patterns of telephone and technology use changed, so our data collection methodology needed to too.

Added to this, our 2017-21 Towards an Active Nation strategy provided an opportune moment to refresh the wider range of metrics collected through the survey.

Data collected through Active Lives is not comparable with Active People due to both methodological differences and a different scope of activities covered in the definition of sport and physical activity.

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A boy laying out cones on the ground before the start of a tennis session.

Children and Young People survey

Scope and background
Active Lives Children and Young People, which was established in September 2017, provides a world-leading approach to gathering data on how children engage with sport and physical activity. Read more

It gives anyone working with children aged 5-16 key insight to help understand children’s attitudes and behaviours around sport and physical activity.

The results will shape and influence local decision-making as well as inform government policy on the PE and Sport Premium, Childhood Obesity Plan and other cross-departmental programmes.

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Data collection methodology
Schools, that have been randomly selected, arrange for up to three mixed ability classes in up to three randomly chosen year groups to complete an online survey. Read more

The survey has a different design for Years 1-2, Years 3-6 and Years 7-11 to ensure it's suitable for each age group.

In addition to this, parents of children sampled in Years 1-2 are asked to complete a questionnaire to provide more detail about their child’s physical activity behaviours.

One teacher per school is also asked to complete a questionnaire on facilities, teacher training, active travel, types of physical activity on offer and the impact of PE and School Sport Premium funding, to provide context to children's responses.

Key details of the differences between surveys are below:

Years 1-2 (5-7 year olds)

These year groups have a simpler survey and it mostly focuses on their attitudes towards sport and physical activity.

Years 3-6 (7-11 year olds)

This survey asks pupils about the sport and activities they've done, as well as their attitudes. Years 3-4 are not asked questions about volunteering and spectating.

Years 7-11 (11-16 year olds)

This is the same as the Years 3-6 survey, but asks additional questions on some topics for more information.

Parents (of 5-7 year olds)

The parent survey is very similar to that for Years 3-6 and asks parents about the activities that their child or children have done. Parents are not asked about their child or children’s attitudes to sport and exercise.

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Teachers
The teacher survey asks about the sport facilities that are available, the impact of the pupil premium and other school-level information, such as the time spent by pupils in PE lessons.
Sampling
A sample of schools is drawn each year from the ‘Get Information about Schools’ database, a register of educational establishments maintained by the Department for Education. The sample includes both state-funded and independent schools. Read more

This includes academies, free schools, and boarding schools. Infant, junior, primary, middle, secondary and all-through schools are all included and results in 96% coverage of all Year 1-11 pupils in England.

The sample is split across the three terms, with 35% in the autumn term, 35% in the spring term and 30% in the summer term.

Schools are selected randomly within each local authority. Up to three year groups are randomly chosen per school and within these year groups a single mixed-ability class is randomly selected. Therefore, each school will carry out the survey with up to three classes.

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Survey development
The survey went through two rounds of cognitive testing and a pilot study. It went live in September 2017, with the first set of data published in December 2018. Read more

The questionnaire is reviewed annually, with key changes documented in the questionnaire summary.

Click here to read the questionnaire overview.

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Releasing results

Data is published in December.

Information for adults completing the survey

The Active Lives Adult Survey is sent out to a randomly selected sample of households across England.

If you've received a request to answer the survey, you'll have received a letter like this.

Your responses are really valuable as they help to give an in-depth picture of how many people take part in sport and physical activity by demographic group, location and activity type.

As a thank you, we’ll give you a £5 gift voucher, which can be redeemed from a range of retailers including department stores, fashion stores and restaurants.

To answer the survey, just go to www.activelivessurvey.org and type in one of the passwords on your invitation letter.

If you have any further questions about the survey, or how to complete it, please email activelives@ipsos.com.

Information for schools

Active Lives Children and Young People provides a world-leading approach to gathering data on how children engage with sport and physical activity.

It gives anyone working with children aged 5-16 key data to help understand children's attitudes and behaviours around sport and activity.

Schoolchildren across England are asked to take part in this survey, which sits at the heart of our vision – that everyone in England, regardless of their age, background and level of ability, should feel able to take part in sport and activity.

How does the survey work?

Schools selected to take part will be contacted by their local Active Partnership.

One class in up to three different year groups are asked to fill out the questionnaires.

While not all schools will be asked to take part in the survey in any given academic year, we estimate that schools will be asked to take part every three or four years.

We've designed the survey to be as easy for schools to administer as possible. The survey can be done at any point in the relevant term, depending on what works best for the school involved.

Active Partnerships will give schools everything they need, including templates for letters to parents, information sheets for teachers and pupils, and technical guidance.

What does the questionnaire involve?

The questionnaires have been designed to be simple and enjoyable for pupils to complete and are tailored to different age groups.

They can be completed on desktop computers, laptops or tablets and take around 20 minutes to fill in. We also ask one teacher from each school to complete a 10-minute survey to give some broader context to the pupils’ responses.

Each school that takes part will be given a bespoke report summarising their own results from the survey

For the youngest pupils in Years 1 and 2, we're also asking parents to fill out a questionnaire to give more information about their child’s physical activity behaviours. Some schools may, therefore, be asked to let parents know about this.

A PE teacher and children inside a sports hall.

School resources

By contributing to the Active Lives Children and Young People Survey you will increase the understanding of how children and young people engage with sport and physical activity.

This survey pack provides you with tools required to successfully complete the pupil and teacher questionnaires, including letters to parents, pupil information sheets and school report templates.

What are the benefits to schools?

Each school that takes part is given a bespoke report summarising their own results from the survey (if at least 30 pupils complete the questionnaire). This report covers measures of children’s activity levels, physical literacy, swimming proficiency, wellbeing, self-efficacy and levels of social trust.

The reports give staff evidence and insight into how their school is performing in terms of engaging its pupils in sport and physical activity. These are not published or used to compare schools, but are purely designed for the benefit of the individual school.

We also offer each participating school at least £100 to thank them for their involvement in the study.

Completing the survey voluntarily

As well as providing data for the official statistics via random selection, the survey can be completed voluntarily by schools.

Schools that ‘opt in’ to the survey do not receive a cash payment for completing it, but do receive a report summarising their survey responses, providing at least 30 pupils complete questionnaires.

Please contact your local Active Partnership representative to take part. You can find out who your local Active Partnership is here.