Find a future in sport

Ready for nine weeks of back-to-back tournaments? With Wimbledon, EURO 2024 and the Olympic Games coming up, you soon won’t be able to go a day without hearing “It’s coming home!” (willingly or not).

We figure all this excitement will inspire many young people to seek out a future in sport and, the good news is, there is one! In fact, here are six careers to think about when you’re cheering on your favourite athletes this summer.

Coach

Sports coaches help people participating in sports maximise their performance by planning and implementing suitable training programmes. The work can range from community to professional level, but the competition to train the World Heavyweight Champion Boxer or  Football Premier League winners is unsurprisingly fierce. 

Path to success: A health or sports science degree may provide useful background knowledge, but you can only become a qualified coach by gaining the appropriate coaching qualification offered by the National Governing Body of your chosen sport.

Personal Trainer

Feel at home in the gym? Whilst a coach helps people in sports, personal trainers focus on individuals’ fitness goals. Your clients may wish to lose weight or gain muscle and you'll help them to exercise properly using personalised programmes. 

Path to success: It's not uncommon for anyone new to the industry to train as a fitness or gym instructor before qualifying as a personal trainer, which can be achieved through a CIMSPA course or apprenticeship.

Physiotherapist

If you’re passionate about helping others, physiotherapy could be the career for you. Physiotherapists assess and treat mobility problems caused by illness, ageing, disability or injury. The latter is a specialism called ‘neuromusculoskeletal’, which is the key to getting into the sports industry. 

Path to success: To practise as a physiotherapist, you must be registered with the Health & Care Professions Council. Entry requires a physiotherapy degree.

Sports Psychologist

Motivation, resilience, focus…The mind plays a huge part in an individual’s sporting performance, so the aim of sports psychologists is to mentally and emotionally prepare athletes for the demands of competition. They do this by providing strategies, advising coaches and delivering workshops.

Path to success: Gaining a BPS-accredited master's degree in sport and exercise psychology is the most typical route into the role, but you’ll also need to be registered with Health & Care Professions Council.

PE Teacher

Think you can handle the responsibility of nurturing the next generation? As well as teaching a range of sports to students of different ages and abilities, PE teachers set and mark assignments, update school records and talk to parents about their children’s progress.

Path to success: Apprenticeship or university – take your pick! If you head down the university path, you can go straight in at a sport degree with qualified teacher status (QTS) or study a different subject and follow it up with a postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE).

Sports Nutritionist

The perfect path for foodies, sports nutritionists use their knowledge of biochemistry to develop athletes’ meal plans. These plans aim to optimise performance by promoting healing, strength and overall health.

Path to success: Believe it or not, there are no specific entry requirements to become a nutritionist. However, employers usually expect you to be registered with the Association for Nutrition, which requires a degree in nutrition science.

Listen up! If you want to further explore the benefits of a future in sports, the latest series of the Find Your Force podcast reveals what different activities, like swimming, football and boxing, can do for your career.