UK padel in numbers, 2026: players, courts and what it means for clubs

Padel figures get quoted everywhere, often without a date, so it is easy to compare a 2024 number with a 2026 one and draw the wrong conclusion. This page collects the official figures from the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), which has governed padel in Britain since 2020, sets them out by date, and then looks at what they mean for clubs, leisure operators and anyone planning new courts. Where we have worked something out ourselves, we say so.

The headline numbers

• 1.5 million adults and juniors playing padel in Britain (LTA, 20 October 2026).
• 2,445 courts at 682 venues across Britain (LTA, 20 October 2026).
• Two-thirds of those 1.5 million players also play tennis (LTA, 20 October 2026).
• 57% of British adults, around 31 million people, had heard of padel by the end of 2025, up from 38% in late 2024 (LTA, 25 March 2026).
• Over 10 million Britons said they wanted to try padel, a rise of 3 million since the end of 2024 (LTA, 25 March 2026).
• £7 per person per hour for an average off-peak booking, or £27 an hour for a court booked for doubles (LTA, 25 March 2026).

Players: from 15,000 to 1.5 million

The LTA counts a “player” as an adult or junior who has played at least once in the previous year. That is a broad measure, so it tells you how many people have picked up a racket, not how often they play.

Put simply, the number of people playing more than doubled in 2025, and has grown by roughly three-quarters again in the first ten months of 2026 (our sum: 860,000 to 1.5 million).

Courts and venues

One thing to watch: the LTA's July 2025 release gave 763 courts at the end of 2024, while its March 2026 release gives 870 for the same point. Counts get revised as venues register, so always quote the date and release with the figure.

Independent trackers count differently again. Actu Padel's October 2026 round-up compares the LTA's 2,445 courts with 2,886 courts at 832 clubs from the booking-data site Playskan and 3,053 courts at 890 sites from the mapping service Padel Genie, which also counts planned sites (Actu Padel, 26 October 2026). The LTA figures cover Great Britain and are the official count; the others are useful for spotting where new courts are coming.

Where the courts are

The most recent regional breakdown the LTA has published is from July 2025, when Britain passed 1,000 courts (LTA, 17 July 2025):

• London and South East: 297 courts
• North and West Midlands: 179
• South and South West: 172
• North and East Midlands: 153
• Central and East: 124
• Scotland: 45 · Wales: 34

By our sum, London and the South East held about 30% of all courts, and together with the South and South West almost half (469 of 1,004). The South of England is where padel took hold first.

Five things the numbers tell a club

These are our own readings of the figures above, not LTA statements.

1. Players are still arriving faster than courts. At the end of 2024 there were about 460 players for every court. By October 2026 it was about 613 (1.5 million over 2,445). Courts are being built at pace, but demand has kept ahead of them, which is why peak slots at many clubs sell out.
2. Venues are getting bigger. The average venue had about 2.8 courts at the end of 2025 and about 3.6 by October 2026. Bigger sites mean more players on site at once, and more of them playing early mornings and late evenings when the desk may not be staffed.
3. A lot of players are new. With 10 million people saying they want to try it, and the player count up by about 640,000 this year, many people walking onto a court have never owned a padel racket. Two-thirds play tennis, but a tennis racket is no use on a padel court.
4. The court fee is only part of the visit. At £7 a head off-peak, padel is affordable, and players often spend on the extras: a fresh tube of balls, a new overgrip, a drink after the match. Those small sales add up across thousands of bookings a year, but only if something is there to buy when players want it.
5. Growth is moving into public venues. The LTA and LTA Tennis Foundation have put more than £7.5 million into court construction, helping deliver over £18 million of investment in 112 courts at 57 venues, and the LTA is working with government on pilot schemes for publicly owned courts (LTA, March and October 2026). Leisure centres and parks are next, and they rarely have a pro shop.

Our recommendation for club operators

If you run or are planning padel courts, plan for the hours when nobody is on the desk. Booking apps and door entry already let players turn up at 06:30 or 21:30 without staff. What usually goes missing at those times is kit: balls, grips, drinks and, for newcomers, a racket.

A courtside padel and tennis vending machine with racket lockers covers that gap. Players buy balls, grips and drinks, or hire a racket from a secure locker, with card, contactless, Apple Pay or Google Pay, whenever the courts are open. Our guide to racket hire without staff goes through the options in detail, including how lost and damaged rackets are handled. For how installation, stocking and servicing work, see how it works.

If your venue also has a gym, the same thinking applies to post-workout nutrition: see should your gym sell protein shakes?

How to read padel statistics

• Check what “player” means. The LTA figure is anyone who played at least once in the year. It is not the number of regular or weekly players.
• Britain, not the UK. The LTA counts Great Britain. Northern Ireland is not included.
• Date every number. Court counts have changed by hundreds within a few months, and earlier figures have been revised.
• Keep sources apart. Official LTA counts, booking-platform data and mapping services measure different things. Do not mix them in one comparison.

Using these figures

You are welcome to use this page when writing about padel in Britain. Please cite the original LTA release for each figure and, if our calculations or round-up helped, link to this page: “UK padel in numbers, 2026”, Nexus Vend, https://nexusvend.com/blog/uk-padel-statistics.html. We will update it as new official figures are published.

Sources

• LTA Padel, LTA marks World Padel Day with record 1.5 million people playing padel in Britain, 20 October 2026
• LTA Padel, 1,000,000 padel players in Britain, 15 May 2026
• LTA Padel, 860,000 players: LTA unveils latest figures on growth of padel in Britain, 25 March 2026
• LTA, Annual Report and Accounts show growth of tennis and padel in 2025, 20 May 2026
• LTA Padel, Padel's rapid rise: Great Britain reaches 1,000 padel courts, 17 July 2025
• Actu Padel, UK padel market in 2026, 26 October 2026