Trends in outdoor swimming 2022

We're super proud of our new Trends in Outdoor Swimming report, which we've spent the last four months working on. It's our closest and most in-depth look yet at who swims where and when, and why do they do it.

Our principal source is our Attitudes to Outdoor Swimming survey, which ran through October and November 2021 and gathered responses from more than 4500 swimmers. This huge dataset allows us to identify patterns and behaviours that might not be immediately obvious, as well as confirm things we already suspected about outdoor swimming. Analysing this data is something of a labour of love but the results are fascinating, and we’re delighted to share the key findings in this report. The three themes that stand out most from 2021 are the ever-growing recognition of the value of outdoor swimming to our mental health and wellbeing, an increase in concern about the damage done to our natural waters through pollution, and the seemingly unstoppable rise of female participation in outdoor swimming. Women this year made up just short of three-quarters of our survey respondents.

Our aim, as last year, is to use the power of data to show the importance and relevance of outdoor swimming. Being an outdoor swimmer is not only good for us individually, it’s good for the world as becoming an outdoor swimmer pushes people to care more for the environment and to take action for positive change. We hope governments, both national and local, take note and do what they can to support the rise in this wonderful activity, starting with improving access to water and putting pressure on polluters to clean up. We also hope our findings are useful to everyone involved in outdoor swimming, from solo entrepreneurs creating new products and services for swimmers to event organisers, suppliers, governing bodies and tourist boards. And if you’re reading this and are not yet an outdoor swimmer, you really should give it a go.

The full report (print version) is available here: