England: most played sports by children 2023

In a survey conducted during the 2022/23 academic year, it was found that over 40 percent of children aged five to 16 had taken part in football in the week leading up to being surveyed. Meanwhile, 27.7 percent had engaged in running, jogging, cross-country, or the Daily Mile.

Share of children participating in sports in the last week in England in 2022/23, by activity

Characteristic	Share of respondents
Football	40.1%
Running, jogging, cross-country, the Daily Mile	27.7%
Swimming (and diving)	26.1%
Trampolining	19.9%
Basketball	16.3%
Gymnastics	12.3%
Dodgeball and benchball	8.8%
Netball	8.5%
Tennis	8.4%
Rugby	8.3%
Boxing	7.5%
Cricket	7.5%
Judo, Karate, Taekwando and other Martial Arts	6.7%
Rounders	6.1%
Climbing (including indoors)	5.9%
Badminton	5.7%
Hockey	5.1%
Sports day events	4.5%
Table tennis, ping pong	4%
Track and field athletics	2.6%
Acrobatics including aerial, aerial hoop	2.4%
Cheerleading	2.3%
Baseball and softball	2.2%
Volleyball	0.5%
Handball	0.4%
Squash or racketball	0.2%
Orienteering	0.1%
Lacrosse	0.1%
Archery	0.1%
Fencing	0.1%
Multi-sports	0.1%

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Release date

December 2023

More information

Region

United Kingdom (England)

Survey time period

September 2022 to July 2023

Number of respondents

122,347 respondents

Age group

5-16 years*

Method of interview

Questionnaire

Supplementary notes

* The source added the following: "The data in this set of tables were collected from year 3-11 pupils, parents of year 1-2 pupils (types of activity and swimming behaviour) and year 1-2 pupils (attitudes towards swimming)."

See Table 5 in the Excel sheet.

This statistic is using original data from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and includes copyright material from © Crown, licensed under the Open Government License v3.0.

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