Active People Survey 4 (APS4) came to a close in the middle of October 2010, rounding off another 12 months of fieldwork to add to Active People Survey 3 (2008/9), APS2 (2007/8) and APS1 (2005/6).

Now with four years worth of Survey data, it’s possible to pick out some emerging trends in the participation rates amongst the most popular sports:

The results for each of the Active People Surveys undertaken have always placed the same five sports, in the same order as most popular in terms of the number of people participating. APS4 has finally bucked this trend, and while the top five remains unchanged, there has been a change to the order.

Athletics has emerged as the biggest growth sport from ASP3 to APS4, perhaps with London 2012 in mind, and there are now 1.9 million participants in England. The trend over the surveys has been one of increase – 127,600 from APS2 to APS3 and a similar number, 135,800, between APS3 and APS4. In the space of just two years, over a quarter of million people (263,400) have become Athletics participants and in excess of 500,000 since APS1.

The number of Cycling participants grew at a similar rate between APS2 and APS3 (112,900) however this has not been sustained into APS4 and the participation has fallen by 13,700 in the latest year’s survey. While this is still an increase of nearly 100,000 since the APS2 baseline and 231,500 on APS1, it’s not enough to see Athletics leapfrog it into third place.

Swimming continues to be the sport with most participants for a fourth survey in a row, however the trend is one of decline. Nearly 82,000 fewer people participated in swimming from APS2 to APS3 and while there is still a decline in the APS4 results, it is of only 6,100. So while there is still decline, the speed of it is slowing, this may be as a result of various free-swimming initiatives over the course of the last 12 months or so.

The other two sports in the top five, Football and Golf, both showed increases from APS1 to APS2, but since have trended a decline. The APS4 data sees them both register a statistical decline from APS2, and in the case of Golf in APS3 verses APS4 as well.

Top 5 Sports: For the first time, there’s been a change in the top 5 sports ranking, with Athletics overtaking Cycling to become the third most popular activity in the UK (results based on KPI1).