The Register of Exercise Professionals is to launch its second industry survey, – Working in Fitness in 2004, in conjunction with Leisure-net Solutions, FitPro and Skills Active’s research unit.

Each of the Register’s 17,000 plus members will be polled and in addition the survey will be opened up to the rest of the industry through pop-ups on the REPs and Fitmness Industry Association (FIA) websites.

The main objectives of the Working in Fitness 2004 survey will be to:

• measure employment within the fitness industry encompassing full, part-time and freelance staff

• gather information on salaries, terms and conditions of employment and benefits across the industry and within individual employer types e.g. private companies, local authorities, trusts and chains • provide trend data of salaries in the sector

• establish key demographics for the industry’s workforce e.g age, gender, ethnicity and disability by region • monitor levels of academic and vocational qualifications, training and professional development among employees

• examine job satisfaction in terms of position, remuneration and career development • explore motivations and barriers to seeking and continuing with a career in fitness

• determine what would encourage people to continue with training and development programmes • ascertain membership and perceptions of trade associations and professional bodies like ILAM, ISRM, FIA, REPs and Skills Active

REPs registrar, Cliff Collins, said: “One of the key objectives of the register has always been to achieve continuity for exercise professionals within the UK.

“Our work within the industry on registration levels has gone a long way to achieving this goal and we hope that regular working practice surveys like this one will help achieve similar results.

“We want to use the results of our survey to paint a comprehensive picture of the kind of wage brackets and conditions of employment, including benefits, exercise professionals can reasonably expect, depending on their qualifications, experience and geography.

“I also hope the results will be beneficial to managers of health clubs and leisure centres when it comes to managing their human recourses obligations. This will in turn lead to better retention rates of staff which can only be a good thing for the entire industry and those we strive to help.”

The organisation hopes that at least 2,000 exercise professionals will respond and the results of the survey, which will be written and analysed by Skills Active, will be announced at the FitPro Business Convention at LIW in Birmingham, in September 2004.