Employment in sport

Data extracted in July 2026

Planned article update: July 2027

Highlights

Employment in sport in the European Union grew by 8.1% between 2024 and 2025.

In 2025, 36.2% of people employed in sport in the EU were aged 15-29 years, more than double the share of this age group in overall employment.

Employment in sport, 2025

This article analyses employment in sport in recent years, quantifies its contribution to total employment and presents its main characteristics at both European Union (EU) and national level. Nowadays, sport has a significant role in several European strategies and programmes. Robust, comparable statistics on the economic and social impact of sport in the EU are needed to support evidence-based sport policy.

Employment in sport - developments between 2022 and 2025

Employment in sport accounts for 1.8 million people in the EU, 0.9% of total employment

In 2025, 1.8 million people were employed in sport in the EU. Men (56.3%) outnumbered women in this workforce, although the gender gap in sport employment was slightly larger than in total employment (see Table 1). By age group, most people employed in sport were aged 30-64 years. The share of young people aged 15-29 years employed in sport was more than twice their share in total employment. In contrast, the share of 30–64-year-olds in sport employment was 19.9 percentage points (pp) lower than their share in total employment.

In terms of educational attainment, 45.1% of people employed in sport had a medium level of education (International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) levels 3-4), 40.1% had a high level (ISCED 5-8) and 14.5% had a low level (up to ISCED level 2). These shares are close to those for overall employment: 0.7 pp lower for low-level, 0.1 pp lower for medium-level, and 0.6 pp higher for high-level education.

Strong increase in sport employment in 2025 compared with 2024

In 2025, employment in sport in the EU increased by around 150 000 people compared with 2024 (up 8.1%), while the share of sport employment in the total employed population was 0.9%.

Employment in sport continued to grow in 2025 for the fourth consecutive year, extending the positive trend that started with the marked increase in 2022 linked to the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. In 2020 and 2021, several countries recorded falls in sport employment. In 2023, sport employment rose in 14 EU countries compared with 2022, with Romania (+31.2%), Bulgaria (+19.9%) and Italy (+19.5%) recording the highest increases, while 13 countries still recorded declines relative to 2022, most notably Greece (-22.0%), Slovenia (-18.2%) and Malta (-11.0%). In most of these countries, the number of people employed in sport is low, so even a small change in headcount can result in large percentage movements (see Figure 1).

In 22 EU countries, sport employment grew between 2023 and 2024. In 11 of these countries, this growth continued the positive trend seen in the previous 2 years. The largest increases were in Croatia (+26.5%), Slovakia (+23.7%) and Lithuania (+22.9%). In contrast, Romania (-24.9%), Czechia (-17.0%), Luxembourg (-13.8%), Austria (-11.6%) and Latvia (-7.9%) recorded decreases.

In 2025, sport employment increased in 19 EU countries compared with 2024, with Czechia (+40.1%), Slovenia (+30.6%) and Lithuania (+27.6%) recording the strongest increases. Out of the 7 EU countries where sport employment fell in 2025, the largest decreases were in Estonia (-28.3%), Croatia (-12.8%) and Ireland and Hungary (both -8.5%).

The gap between men and women in sport employment has widened since 2011 (see Figure 2)

Men’s employment in sport grew steadily from 583 200 people in 2011 to 746 400 in 2019. It then fell slightly in 2020 by 5 200, before increasing again in 2021 (+10 200, a 1.4% increase), 2022 (+80 500, 10.7%), 2023 (+24 900, +2.9%), 2024 (+72 100, +8.4%) and 2025 (+83 000, +8.9%).

The number of women employed in sport fell in 2013 (-27 900 compared to 2012, -5.3%). Subsequent years of continuous growth in women’s employment in sport increased the figure to 623 900 people in 2019, before it dropped again in 2020 (-50 000, -8.0%). Since 2021, women’s employment in sport has risen each year, reaching 722 700 people in 2024 (+27 900, +4.0% compared to 2023) and, in 2025, the highest level recorded at 786 100 people (+63 400, +8.8%).

Characteristics of employment in sport in 2025

Employment in sport as a share of total employment

In 2025, employment in sport accounted for 0.9% of total employment in the EU, ranging from 0.2% in Romania to 1.6% in Sweden (see Figure 3). In Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovenia, employment in sport represented at least 1% of total employment. At country level, the share of employment in sport in total employment increased in 21 of the 27 EU countries between 2022 and 2025.

Men outnumber women in employment in sport

In 2025, men made up 56.3% of people employed in sport in the EU (see Figure 4), broadly reflecting the structure of the total employed population. In most EU countries, fewer women than men were employed in sport. The largest gaps (where at least two thirds of people employed in sport were men) were observed in Belgium (69.9% men), Portugal (66.4%), Cyprus (65.9%) and Slovenia (65.7%). By contrast, women outnumbered men in sport employment in Estonia (53.8% women), Sweden (53.4%), Austria (52.8%), Finland (52.5%) and the Netherlands (51.7%).

36.2% of people employed in sport were aged 15-29 years

Compared with the age structure of the total employment (see Figure 5), young people accounted for a clearly larger share of the people employed in sport. In 2025, 36.2% of people employed in sport in the EU were aged 15-29 years, which is more than double the share of young people in total employment (17.1%). In every country with available data, the proportion of young people employed in sport exceeded their share in overall employment. The gap was widest in Spain and Portugal, where the share of young people in sport was 2.9 and 2.8 times as high than in total employment respectively, and similarly high in Finland and Bulgaria (2.8 and 2.7 times as high).

In 8 EU countries, at least 40% of people employed in sport were young people: Finland (53.4%), Denmark (50.6%), Sweden (46.8%), the Netherlands (45.5%), Spain (44.5%), Portugal (43.6%), Ireland (42.2%) and Belgium (41.6%). At the opposite end, in only 7 countries did those aged 15-29 years account for less than 30% of people employed in sport. Lithuania recorded the lowest share (14.4%).

40.1% of people employed in sport had completed tertiary education

In the EU in 2025, 40.1% of people employed in sport had completed tertiary education (see Figure 6), a slightly higher share than among the total employed population (39.5%). In Greece (68.3%) and Lithuania (67.3%) at least two thirds of people employed in sport were tertiary education graduates. In a further 6 EU countries, more than half of people employed in sport had a tertiary qualification. Of the 24 EU countries with reliable data, 12 reported a lower share of tertiary education graduates in sport than the EU average of 40.1%, with the lowest proportions in Finland (19.3%), Denmark (24.3%) and Sweden (24.9%).

In 2025, Romania recorded the highest ratio between the share of tertiary education graduates employed in sport and their share in total employment (2.0), followed by Greece (1.8) and Hungary (1.5). In 10 EU countries, the share of tertiary education graduates in sport employment was lower than in total employment.

Focus on young and tertiary educated people

Following the fall in 2024, the share of young people employed in sport decreased again in 2025, while the proportion of tertiary education graduates remained above 40%.

Between 2011 and 2025, the two socio-demographic characteristics examined in the previous sections – age and education followed different paths (see Figure 7)

The share of young people employed in sport fell by 1.8 pp between 2011 and 2013, then increased to almost 35% in 2017. It then declined sharply from 2019 to 2021, by 2.8 pp. From 2022, it increased again, reaching 37.3% of all people employed in sport in 2023, before dropping to 36.7% in 2024 and further to 36.2% in 2025.
In contrast, the share of people employed in sport who were tertiary education graduates increased almost every year between 2011 and 2021 (with the exception of 2020), rising from 28.5% in 2011 to 39.6% in 2021. It then held steady in 2022 (39.4%) and 2023 (39.6%), before moving above 40% in 2024 (40.6%) and staying above this level in 2025 (40.1%).

Source data for tables and graphs

Employment in sport: tables and figures

Data sources

Eurostat and the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture have introduced the regular publication of sport-related statistics. Eurostat does not carry out a dedicated data collection for sport, thus sport statistics are derived from existing EU data collections. Employment statistics for sport come from the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) — , which is the main source of information on the EU labour market and employment trends. These statistics show how sport contributes to total employment and describe the main characteristics of employment in sport, using variables such as age, sex or education.

Methodology/Metadata

Employment in sport is measured using the central statistical definition from the Vilnius definition of sport, which covers core sporting activities in NACE Rev.2 group 93.1 — Sports activities.

Occupation is also included in the scope of employment in sport, thus all jobs in a NACE economic sector and all jobs in a sports occupation (ISCO, 'International Standard Classification of Occupations') outside the NACE sport sector are considered at the same time. In practice, this means that all workers recorded in NACE Rev. 2 group 93.1 (Sports activities) and/or ISCO-08 code 342 (Sports and fitness workers) fall within the scope of this definition of sport. In other words, employment in sport covers people employed:

in a sports-related occupation in the sports sector (ISCO-08 code 342*NACE Rev. 2 group 93.1), for example professional athletes and professional coaches in fitness centres;
in a non-sports occupation in the sports sector (NACE Rev.2 group 93.1), for example receptionists in fitness centres;
in a sports-related occupation (ISCO-08 code 342) outside the sports sector, for example school sport instructors.

NACE Rev.2 group 93.1 covers:

activities of sports teams or clubs whose primary activity is participating in live sports events in front on a paying audience;
independent athletes who take part in live sporting or racing events before a paying audience;
owners of vehicles or animals that take part in races (such as cars, dogs or horses) who are primarily engaged in entering them in racing or other spectator sports events;
sports trainers providing specialised services to support participants in sporting events or competitions;
operators of arenas and stadiums;
other activities of organising, promoting or managing sports events, not elsewhere classified.

ISCO-08 code 342 covers sports and fitness workers, including athletes, players, coaches, instructors and officials, as well as fitness and recreation instructors and programme leaders.

The employment figures presented here count people, not full-time equivalents. They include all paid workers in sport-related jobs, whether they work full-time or part-time. The EU-LFS collects detailed information on economic activity and occupation only for the respondent’s main job, thus it does not cover secondary jobs. These secondary jobs are therefore excluded from the aggregates that describe employment in sport, so the data are likely to underestimate the actual level of employment in this field.

Time series

Regulation (EU) 2019/1700, which came into force on 1 January 2021, caused a break in the EU-LFS time series for several EU countries. To track changes in employment and unemployment despite this break, EU countries assessed how the break affected their national data and calculated impact factors or break-corrected data for a set of indicators. Break-corrected data are published for the main EU-LFS indicators.

Further information on the EU-LFS is available in the online publication EU-LFS, which contains eight articles on the technical and methodological aspects of the survey. The EU-LFS methodology applied from the 2021 data collection onwards is described in the article methodology from 2021 onwards. Detailed information on coding lists, explanatory notes and classifications used over time is available under documentation.

Context

The multiannual work programme (EU Work Plan for Sport for 2024-2027) agreed by the EU Council, sets the priorities and principles for cooperation on sport between the European Commission and the Member States.

Several expert groups have been created to deliver concrete results. Among these, the Expert Group on the Economic Dimension of Sport (XG ECO) and the Expert Group on Health-Enhancing Physical Activity (XG HEPA) are central to implementing evidence-based policies in the sports sector. XG ECO has developed an economic definition of sport ('Vilnius definition') and has advanced work on Sport Satellite Accounts in some EU countries. XG HEPA is implementing the Council recommendations on physical activity adopted in 2013, including a monitoring framework with indicators for physical activity levels and for policies that promote physical activity in EU countries. Comparable Eurostat data on international trade, employment in sport and participation in sporting activities, among other topics, are an important input for monitoring and developing EU policies in this area.

Explore further

Database

Employment in sport (sprt_emp), see:

Employment in sport by sex (sprt_emp_sex)

Employment in sport by age (sprt_emp_age)

Employment in sport by educational attainment level (sprt_emp_edu)

Labour market (labour), see:

Employment and unemployment (Labour force survey) (employ)

LFS series - detailed annual survey results (lfsa)

Employment - LFS series (lfsa_emp)

Thematic section

Publications

Methodology

Employment in sport (sprt_emp) (ESMS metadata file — sprt_emp_esms)
Employment and unemployment (labour force survey) (ESMS metadata file — employ_esms)
EU labour force survey — online publication

Legislation

External links