Top Personal Trainer Specialities for 2024

It’s worth thinking about the different personal trainer specialities you could pursue. This guide will tell you everything you need to know and how choosing a specialization will benefit your career! 

Contents:

• What Are Personal Trainer Specialities?
• Why Are Personal Trainer Specialities Important?
• Examples of Personal Trainer Specialities
• Highest Paid Personal Trainer Specialities

Before we start, did you know you can expand your client base with a Level 4 Nutrition qualification?

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What Are Personal Trainer Specialities?

These are exactly what they say on the tin: a personal trainer specialty is what your particular niche is as a PT.

Though everyone will start from a similar position, once you have experience in the fitness industry, you can go beyond regular personal training sessions to develop a USP.

Depending on experience, you can choose to focus on a particular style of workout, certain groups of people, or even working with athletes. 

When you become a personal trainer, choosing a specialty can be a great way to enhance your career prospects, but you need to make sure you pick one that’s right for you.

Each personal trainer specialism will demand a different qualification, but having a Level 2 Certificate in Fitness Instructing is the base level that all further fitness qualifications build from.

A prerequisite for working in most facilities, however, is the more advanced Level 3 Personal Trainer qualification. 

If you’re not yet qualified we offer both of these courses as a personal training diploma! This is a great way to complete both qualifications, which will set you up to be able to pursue all of  the different specialities in personal training listed below. 

Level 3 Personal Trainer courses open the most doors, and provide the most stable foundation for specialisations. 

OriGym's article on personal trainer course levels goes into more detail about the difference between the two, the importance of being Level 3 qualified, and why you need to seek a PT course that is accredited and regulated.

Don’t worry if you don’t know what qualifications, or even what specialization, you want to pursue yet, as we’ve detailed plenty of options throughout this article.

Why Are Personal Trainer Specialities Important?

Though it can be rewarding to do something more specific, especially if it's an area of fitness that you really enjoy, it doesn’t just come down to interest - having a specialization can be one of the best ways to boost your career and increase your income! 

If you have a niche, you will naturally have a competitive edge over those who offer holistic personal training services. 

This is especially true if there’s a gap in your local market for a particular specialization! 

Being a specialist also allows you to market yourself as an ‘expert’ in a particular area, which enables you to charge higher prices for those services.

Nothing is stopping you from choosing one of the personal trainer specialities on our list, and offering it alongside standard personal training. Doing this would allow you to maximize your potential client base, and in turn, earn more money!

We’ll look at which specializations are amongst the highest paying fitness jobs later on, breaking down what makes them so profitable.

Examples of Personal Trainer Specialities

Now let’s dive into the different types of personal trainer specialities!

Obesity and Weight Loss Management

Though weight loss would seem like a ubiquitous reason to get in touch with a personal trainer, it can often be health, rather than purely aesthetic goals, that bring clients to you. 

If you like the sound of helping clients improve their quality of life, and you’re interested in understanding the long-term risks, underlying physical causes, or symptoms of obesity, this is perhaps the best personal training specialty to consider. 

Your responsibilities for this specialization include: 

• Treating a client’s weight issues with sensitivity
• Understanding the client’s long term behaviour
• Designing and delivering weight loss plans

To be successful in this role, you’ll need to understand the relationship between exercise and nutrition, and be able to create a programme that considers both of these elements. 

Implementing such a programme, and teaching these basic principles to your client, will help them to keep the weight off and maintain a healthy lifestyle after they’ve gotten into shape. 

With this kind of more medically informed PT specialty, you’ll find yourself working to improve and extend your clients life even more than a standard personal trainer. 

The stakes are higher when you’re working to decrease the risk of further illness, and so the rewards will certainly match!

This is one of the specialities with a very clear qualification to match it. To go beyond average weight loss goals with clients, you should consider completing a Level 4 qualification in Obesity and Weight Management.

An understanding of obesity and metabolic syndrome will form the basis of this course. Understanding these two things, as well as their contributory factors, is paramount to this specialism.

To start on a Level 4 Obesity course, you’ll need to have those base level qualifications. For example, a Level 3 Personal Trainer qualification or a Level 3 certificate in Exercise Referral.

Remember, though, to always do your market research! Personal training specialities are a great way of progressing in your career, but there needs to be a demand for that particular service. 

For example, if you live in a small town and there is already a PT working with this very specific group of clients, chances are you’ll struggle to be successful in that same specialization. 

Weight Loss Specialist Case Study

Want to know where personal trainer specializations can take you? Just look at Mark Ludlow. He delivers on his Instagram handle “Transformation Mark” when you look at his own life experience.

Mark started his journey with a huge weight loss of his own. He was a whopping 10 stone heavier than he is now, before losing the weight and qualifying as a personal trainer. 

Though Mark’s particular niche is his own personal weight loss journey, he’s proof that a weight loss specialist can be hugely successful and make a massive difference! 

He is also a great example of the overlap between weight management and exercise referral specialities. The testimonials on his site are a mixture of people he’s helped recover from injuries, obesity, and other existing conditions.

As you can see, there are a range of qualifications which can prepare you to work with this specific group of clients, making this one of the most diverse types of personal trainer specialities!

Another great way of boosting your clientele, like Mark Ludlow, is combining personal training with an advanced knowledge of nutrition. Check out OriGym's personal trainer nutritional advice to see how to integrate this into your training!

Sports Nutritionist

This is one of the best examples of specialities in personal training that can be combined with another. You can easily incorporate nutritional knowledge into your PT sessions to make them more valueable, lucrative, and niche.

Even a PT with a Level 3 Personal Trainer qualification is only able to give holistic advice on nutrition. They're not qualified to give in depth nutritional advice, or design an extensive diet plan for particular goals.

Much like some of the other options on our personal trainer specialities list, this can be used as a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, standard sessions.

If you're able to give professional, qualified advice about diet and nutrition, you're able to provide more rigorous information than the standard trainer.

You'll be able to attract a much wider range of clients, you will also be able to help them more effectively and thoroughly. Think of the most common reasons people come to a trainer: health, weight loss, or for a particular sport.

If you've got nutritional advice to offer, with the ability to incorporate such details into a personalised programme, you can cater to each of these goals with even more efficacy.

Sports Nutritionist Case Study

Sarah O'Neill is a London based personal trainer and nutritionist who is the perfect example of how this is one of the most valueable specialities.

In her personal training Sarah includes food diary analysis and meal planning, as well as bespoke exercise regimes for individuals and groups.

You only have to look at what she's able to charge, with this extra bonus added to her sessions, to see why this is so lucrative.

These are the prices you're able to choose when you've got specialities in your personal training. 

On top of including nutritional advice in your PT sessions, like we said, you could offer bundles like Sarah's. By charging for packages like these, you're locking clients in for a set amount of time.

Sports Massage Therapist

Sports massage therapy (or SMT) is massage that helps alleviate damage and pain caused by repetitive physical activity. 

It can help speed up recovery time, reduce inflammation, and therefore minimise muscle soreness. It can even help strengthen the soft tissues to help prevent future injury! 

If you’re interested in becoming a sports massage therapist, firstly you need to know how physical and hands on this role can be. 

Obviously, you’ll spend most of your time delivering massages, so this needs to be something you’re comfortable with.

It’s certainly not a monotonous role though! You’ll also be responsible for:

• Assessing clients to determine exactly what kind of treatment they need
• Testing clients’ joints for pain and levels of movement
• Providing emergency aid needed during a sports event
• Designing rehabilitation programs around clients’ individual injuries
• Work in tandem with other healthcare professionals, personal trainers, and coaches
• Giving advice on diet, nutrition, and other lifestyle changes

Though there’s crossover between the qualifications needed for certain types of personal trainer specialities, SMT has requirements of its own.

You’ll need to complete a Level 3 Sports Massage course to deliver sports massage. There are no previous requirements for this course, however, having completed your PT qualifications will certainly make getting through the course content much easier. 

This is a great specialism to combine with personal training, as there is a lot of crossover between the type of person who seeks a PT, and those who need sports massage.

For example, a sports massage client who is at a plateau with their training could easily become one of your PT clients.

Or, if you have a regular PT client who gets an injury, rather than taking a loss while they recover, you could transfer them over to your SMT service. This means that you retain your client, and get to help them through a period of injury or pain - building their trust!

Though there’s no concrete figure for a sports massage salary, this particular career would allow you to work with clients that you couldn’t with any of the other personal trainer specialities on our list. 

Another advantage of sports massage is that it can lead to working with huge clients. If you market yourself well, and build up a reputation, you could even work for big sports teams or individual athletes.

It can also be one of the most stable specialities in personal training, as there are some opportunities to work as an employee for a gym or health club, where your clients will often be provided for you. This makes it an ideal specialization for newly qualified PTs. 

Sports Massage Therapist Case Study

When you think of sports massage, the first thing that comes to mind may not be a performing arts school. However, Trinity Laban specialise in dance, music, and other performing arts and have in-house sports massage therapists!

Their prices show how much money you can make with just this specialism alone:

And that’s without combining it with other personal trainer specializations! Imagine how financially worthwhile it would be to offer this alongside standard personal training sessions.

This is why it’s one of the most diverse, as well as financially stable, personal training specialities. 

Strength and Conditioning 

The exciting thing about strength and conditioning is that it’s one of the fastest growing specializations in personal training. 

It’s an opportunity to work with aspiring and existing athletes, but recently, more and more gym goers are turning towards S&C specialists for more advanced training plans. 

A common misconception is that S&C is just about lifting weights and increasing strength. However, it’s just as much about mobility, flexibility, and even serves to foster better mental health.

In its simplest form, strength and conditioning training is the practice of applying sports science to exercise in order to increase performance and movement. 

By doing this, you can help people reduce the risk of injury, push themselves to meet new personal bests, and improve their performance.

With the increasing popularity of Sports Enhancement classes in the gym, specialising in S&C doesn’t mean you will only work with clients on a one-to-one basis. 

Instead, you can combine strength and conditioning with other fitness instructing specialities and qualifications to teach classes!

The diverse areas you can work in, the huge amount of potential clients, and the fact that you can run specialized group classes, means it can be one of the more lucrative personal trainer specializations. 

When you think about the fact that every professional and semi-professional sports team or athlete will need some strength and conditioning training, you realise just how many potential opportunities there are. 

Check out our step-by-step guide on how to become a strength and conditioning coach for more information!

S&C Specialist Case Study

Tom Morrison has applied strength and conditioning to his own registered process: The Simplistic Mobility Method®. 

Using this method to help people with mobility issues, help reduce pain, and build stability, Tom has now got swathes of positive testimonials and over 15K followers on Instagram!

He’s a great example of why strength and conditioning can be one of the best personal training specialisms to invest in. You can help a huge range of people, with diverse issues, whilst still working towards a massive goal like working with a large sports team.

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Find out how you can make money as a personal trainer and find your niche in the fitness industry by checking out our guides below:

• Make Money As A Personal Trainer
• Personal Trainer Business Plan
• Marketing Strategies For A Personal Trainer

Yoga Instructor

The yoga market is projected to be worth over a billion by 2025 so there’s no question as to its popularity!

So if this is one of the most ubiquitous specialities, how can having it in your personal training roster boost your numbers and income?

Yoga is more often than not kept as a separate specialisation to personal training. Though they do involve different skills, and often differ in their concerns, they do marry very well. 

For instance, another one of these personal trainer specialities that could combine naturally with yoga is strength and conditioning.

If you’re helping somebody to increase their flexibility, strength, and mobility then yoga is a natural choice. This, alongside the psychological and holistic health benefits, mean a lot of people privilege yoga over other personal training and exercise.

If you are qualified in both, then you’ll potentially be far more in demand as a personal trainer. Not only will you have specialities to help people with their physical fitness, you can also design better programmes for mental health.

All of the benefits of yoga will contribute to better quality exercise. Yoga can help reduce inflammation and improve sleep, both of which contribute to faster and better recovery. 

So, despite yoga being an incredibly lucrative option in its own right, you’ll be even more profitable if you combine it with standard personal training. 

With specialities in yoga you can supplement any existing sessions with yoga classes. You can also incorporate yoga into your existing programmes.

This will add a lot of value as well as potentially extending and developing your time with your clients. 

By doing this you’re increasing your potential revenue by keeping clients longer and providing a wider range of services. Any yoga classes you do, alongside standard PT sessions, will be bonus income!

It can also be combined with other specialities in personal training, making it one of the most versatile options. 

You’ll need at least a Level 3 Diploma in Yoga to qualify as an instructor. If you have this, as well as your Level 3 Personal Trainer qualification, you’re well on your way to cornering the market.

Yoga Specialist Case Study

Sanchia Legister is a testament to how lucrative and fulfilling a career combining personal training and yoga can be.

She started off in a running group who aimed to diversify running culture. Through this she started to do yoga sessions to help members with their conditioning and became obsessed!

She's the founder of Yoga Hood Ldn and Gyal Flex, as well as a global ambassador for fitness clothing brand Lulu Lemon.

The fact that she came to yoga through another sport just goes to show how versatile this speciality is. If you combine the two, you can also use it for strength, conditioning, and the mental wellbeing of clients.

To get some inspiration for your yoga journey, check out OriGym’s list of the best yoga teacher sites.

Special Populations: Pre and Postnatal

Though rest and relaxation are of course optimum during pregnancy, exercise can actually be really helpful. 

In fact, NHS research shows some evidence of regular exercise helping to reduce risk of problems during labour.

Prenatal plans will often involve strengthening certain muscles, whilst postnatal training will often be about regaining energy levels and meeting any aesthetic goals the new mothers have. 

It’s been fairly recent that medical advice has changed regarding the safety of exercise during pregnancy, so it’s still a rare niche.

However, don’t let this put you off! Sometimes the rarer personal trainer specialities are the much more fruitful opportunities. If there’s a need there, and you can corner the market, you could potentially be in very high demand.

Though qualifications specific to pre and postnatal specialities do exist, special populations are covered in a Level 3 Personal Trainer course!

With this in-depth course you will learn how to safely and accurately train specific groups. 

One of the best specialities in personal training to combine with this is yoga. Though this is still a growing niche, the existing trainer who specialise in personal training pregnant woman often incorporate yoga.

This is another way that you can ensure keeping hold of your clients for longer. Even if they're unable to do standard training, you can use yoga during their pregnancy before switching back for a postnatal programme.

Check out our article on finding a personal trainer niche for more information on choosing the right specialization for you.

Pre & Postnatal Specialist Case Study

Erica Ziel has made a career of this niche with Knocked Up Fitness. Though she specialises in pelvic floor strengthening in general, helping women across the board, and pilates, she has a whole other Instagram just for this specialism!

Her Instagram is full of inspirational and motivational tips for mums, and her following on this separate page speaks for itself. 

Though she’s based in the states, having that many followers certainly suggests high levels of demand.

To get an idea of UK prices however, you can look at Emily G. Fitness and Wellbeing. The prices of her packages alone speak volumes and show that new and expecting mums are willing to pay a premium for a specialised service. 

You can see, from what she’s able to charge, just how lucrative pre and postnatal specialities can be for a personal trainer. People are willing to pay when you offer a bespoke, unique service.

Special Populations: Seniors

Older clients will, on the whole, struggle more to maintain a healthy weight, be more prone to falls due to weakening muscles, and are more likely to have existing conditions that need managing alongside exercise.

There’s even some evidence from the NHS to suggest that keeping active can help lower the risk of heart disease, strokes, and dementia!

With this in mind, it's clear that this is a specialty with plenty of client demand, but considering just how much these services can benefit older clients, it's clearly a really rewarding job, too.

If you’re interested in pursuing this personal trainer specialty, the good news is that much like pre and postnatal personal training, this specialization is touched upon in our Level 3 Personal Trainer course. 

This means that technically, you don’t need to complete any further qualifications to pursue this specialty.

However, if you’re particularly keen to work with older clients, it is worth considering completing a Level 3 Exercise Referral course.

Completing this qualification would allow you to become an exercise referral specialist, working with clients who have been referred to an exercise programme by their GP or a specialist.

These clients will include people dealing with injuries or pre-existing conditions, and so naturally includes elderly clients.

This is one of the more scientific personal trainer specialities on our list, and its versatility means you can shape it to your interests!

If you’re coming to training with a scientific perspective, perhaps fascinated by the anatomical and physiological side of things, then this can be one of the most medically informed specialities to consider. 

There’s plenty of diversity in where you train as well: if you’re mobile you could work with groups in a care facility, as well as one-to-one in the gym or in people’s homes.

If you are interested in going mobile, there’ll be more on that later, but check out our list of essential personal trainer equipment to get started!

Don't want your access to informative resources to end? Why don't you read these then?

• Important Resources For Personal Trainers
• Professional Development For Personal Trainers
• Finding A Personal Trainer Job

Seniors Specialist Case Study

Live for Fitness is a holistic training service run by Carol Winterborne who offers, among other things, training for over 50s.

Looking at her testimonials you can see what a massive difference you can make by choosing a specialization. Her own list of specialities combines exercise referral, training seniors, and pre & postnatal. 

She’s proof that by combining specialities, or securing a niche within one, can open a lot of doors for you!

With one qualification you could corner a market whilst also ensuring you help a wide range of people, just like Carol! Whilst you’re building your reputation as a trainer for seniors, you can more easily secure a steady stream of clients through referrals.

Special Populations: Clients with Medical Conditions

This personal trainer specialization involves designing exercise programmes for clients with chronic medical conditions or illnesses.

You may also work with those recovering from a particular illness or injury. More often than not you will receive referrals from GPs, the NHS, or private medical practitioners.

If you’re a newly qualified personal trainer, this is one of the specialisms that will work best for you, since the exercise referral process means that a large section of your client base will be referred to you rather than you necessarily having to seek them out. 

Plus, Exercise Referral professionals can often find full-time work, such as at a private health club or a council-run leisure centre.

With conditions like diabetes, mental health disorders, and arthritis on the rise, there are always people that need help using fitness to increase their health and wellbeing.

This is one of the best personal trainer specialities for those who want to work with a variety of clients as you’ll be helping clients with a diverse range of conditions, such as Diabetes, Asthma, High Cholesterol, and COPD.

Choosing this specialism could also mean helping people gain their strength, lung capacity, and energy levels back after suffering from Covid-19. With many suffering from long covid, fitness increasingly has to be tailored to these needs.

Another benefit is that any change in perspective that comes from working with referral clients, will filter through to standard sessions. 

Working with older clients and people with existing conditions, especially mental health conditions, will help to make you a more patient, compassionate personal trainer.

Specialisms that centre around these populations will also help to improve your ability to adapt and tailor sessions to meet specific needs.

But don’t just take our word for it! Mind, the mental health charity, has plenty of articles, and interviews with athletes, about the benefits of exercise on mental health conditions. 

As we’ve already mentioned, a Level 3 GP Exercise Referral certificate is a great base line qualification for a lot of different personal trainer specialities. You can coach people with specific ailments or conditions, whilst also making room for further specialisation down the line.

A Level 3 Exercise Referral course will teach you more about the UK healthcare system, the processes of referrals from GPs, and how to monitor and measure the risk, success, and progress of clients.

Training People with Medical Conditions: A Case Study

Sole2Soul, founded by Charlotte, is based on the holistic idea that physical and mental wellbeing can be optimised simultaneously through fitness. Building on her qualification in exercise referral she’s gone on to win awards and help huge swathes of people.

As you can see, there’s a huge amount of success to be found in narrowing down your personal trainer specialities to focus on particular conditions. 

You can combine foregrounding compassion and medical care, with lucrative business savvy to make a lot of money!

For a step by step guide on how to become an exercise referral specialist, check out our article!

Special Populations: Clients with Disabilities

Similar to working with clients who’ve been referred from the GP, this is one of the most diverse personal training specialisms.

You would work with different clients all the time, with a huge array of different disabilities, whether they’re categorised as learning, mental, or physical. 

According to the government's 2020 - 2021 Family Resources Survey, 22% of people in the UK have a disability. This doesn’t have to mean lessened fitness levels however; this is widely varied based on the disability someone has.

With a base level of an exercise referral course, this is an ideal role for someone who goes above the average drive of a personal trainer. 

For specializations like these, specific courses are few and far between. This means that building on the contents of Level 3, you will have to be driven and motivated to do a lot of independent research. 

Because of this, though, it can be one of the most lucrative personal trainer specialities, especially as you will potentially have longer standing clients. 

Not only will you be working with people who want to maintain their fitness levels, but also people with long term, degenerative conditions.

Training People with Disabilities: A Case Study

This is what inspired Dom Thorpe. Dom started out because he wanted to help people, like his mother, who sadly passed away from Multiple Sclerosis. 

Though he started out with this particular condition in mind, he offers a bespoke programme that will cater to any disability. 

This is a constantly changing field, where you’ll always be learning, and so can be one of the most rewarding personal trainer specializations.

Taking a look at Dom’s Instagram, you can see just how in demand a personal trainer with one of these specialities can be. Also, by building his niche from an exercise referral qualification, he can combine helping people with chronic conditions as well as disabilities.

This means that whilst you’re building up your reputation, and your social media presence, to stand out as a PT, you can rely on the stability of referred clients. 

Special Populations: Personal Training for Kids

This is another area where, although very niche and specific, there are still various ways that you can train clients, and a range of clients that you can work with!

This is one of the most diverse specialities, as it can involve focusing on a particular sport, helping children with their confidence, their coordination, or even rehabilitation following surgery.

On top of that, the locations are incredibly diverse too: don’t want to work in a gym? You could work in schools, colleges, or specialist sports and leisure centres. The options are huge! 

There are even some different types of outdoor training that lend themselves perfectly to working with kids.

The particular challenge is that you’re working with bodies that are developing and are therefore constantly in flux. This means it’s another one of the personal trainer specialisms that is informed by nutrition as well as exercise regimes. 

One of the top priorities when personal training kids is keeping them motivated, being innovative, and making sure every activity is fun and engaging.

However, needing to constantly think on your feet, in a fresh way, will inform your standard personal training as with specialities for other special populations.

Needing to parse what the parents are telling you, whilst working directly with the child, means being flexible, a really good listener, and facing challenges head on in terms of satisfying several goals and people at once. 

If this sounds like one of the specialities for you, the next step is to consider what qualifications you’ll need.

When you’re working with kids, you want to be as trustworthy as possible to put parents’ minds at ease. This is why children are another special population covered in our Level 3 Personal Trainer course!

Not only will this make you seem more reputable it will mean you can work outside of the gym, making you more adaptable to clients’ needs!

Like all jobs where you’ll be working with children, or vulnerable people, you’ll also need a DBS check.

As we’ve already seen, a great way to be a more successful personal trainer is to have specialities that comfortably overlap and interact with one another.

This is your best bet both financially and in terms of the diversity of clients that you can attract. 

If you wanted to work solely with obese children, or children with diabetes, then you would need a Level 4 in the respective area. 

It’s important not to stretch yourself too thin though; finding the balance with variety in personal trainer specialisms is important.

With a more holistic, general approach there are two main routes you can go down: you can train on a one-to-one basis or be a children’s group fitness instructor. 

This course will equip you with the knowledge and skills to plan and deliver effective classes, and demonstrate exercises to groups.

Personal Trainer for Kids: A Case Study

Melvin Capleton was inspired to start personal training with kids because of his background as a professional footballer.

Prior to starting Open Fit, Melvin worked with some of the country’s leading football coaches and coached semi-professional teams himself. 

So why make the switch? Mel’s passion is getting the best out of people, no matter what age, and he now has several personal trainer specialities.

As well as still football coaching, with groups of children, he also specialises in children’s fitness with a range of different groups and activities.

As you'll see from his following on Instagram, the testimonials on his website, and the prices he’s able to charge, this is one of the most rewarding and financially viable specialities for a personal trainer. 

Mobile Personal Training

The main attraction of becoming a mobile personal trainer is that this specialty has a multitude of possibilities, as you’re not limited by location or by the kind of clients you can train.

A mobile personal trainer is exactly that: they’re a personal trainer unlimited by a particular facility. 

You might decide that of all the specialities in personal training, this one offers you the most freedom. Mobile personal training can involve training clients in their home, the park, at their workplace, or another place of the client’s choosing.

One of the main benefits of being a mobile personal trainer is that you won’t need to complete any qualifications beyond a Level 3 Personal Trainer course. 

Similarly, like some we’ve already mentioned, mobile personal training can be combined with other types of personal training specialities to further increase your potential income.

For example, you could offer mobile services as a side hustle alongside a full-time or contracted job at a gym.

Being mobile will often mean being self-employed, making this one of the best specialities for personal trainers who are business minded and independent. 

Though there’s the added responsibility of national insurance, doing your own taxes, and insurance, being self-employed means you keep far more of the profits. Plus, being mobile will also mean that you save on the price of renting a space to train in.

As with all self-employed positions, the salary can be very difficult to quantify. Not only will it depend on where you’re setting up your business, but it will depend on what the competition is like and how much you can feasibly charge for your services.

The important thing to remember though, is that the freedom to set your own prices, and the potentially increased pool of clients, means it can be a very lucrative personal trainer specialism.

If you’re unsure where to start, check out our personal trainer business checklist for everything you need to know!

Mobile Personal Trainer Case Study

David Hogg’s company Mobile Gym Fitness is testament to the benefits of setting up for yourself and going mobile

In fact, they’ve even got a counter on the website showing the number of clients they have every week. This just goes to show how many more clients you can get when you’re not limited to one location.

Mobile Gym Fitness also offers a franchise option. If you work for them you can use their equipment, in their decked out mobile gyms, without having to shell out for the equipment yourself!

Highest Paid Personal Trainer Specialities

To start, let’s get familiar with the average salary for a personal trainer who does not have any specialities.

In the UK it’s £26,759 according to Indeed, going slightly above that in England and Wales specifically. 

The highest recorded salary for a personal trainer though, on Indeed, is nearly £70K! 

Bear in mind that, as we’ve shown throughout this article, working for yourself can increase your earnings exponentially, and these figures won’t be factored into Indeed’s averages.

Obviously, this makes it difficult to quantify which of the personal trainer specialities are the highest earners. So much of how much you earn depends on:

• Location
• Experience
• Demand
• How good you are at marketing yourself as a personal trainer.

All types of personal trainer specialities have the potential to massively increase your income, however, there are a few areas that are more likely to be big earners. 

You should also think about the fact that whether you work for yourself or are contracted, will affect your income!

It might be more accurate to say that these are some of the most stable specialities for personal trainers. 

Understandably, you might not want to take the leap and go independent straight away. That’s why the best personal trainer specialization for you right now might not be the one with the highest income, but with the most job security. 

Whatever you choose, you may want to look further into the future and think about owning and managing your own facility.

Being a fitness manager may be the highest potential earner, which makes sense considering many small or independent gym owners manage their own facility, and therefore set their own salary.

Once you’ve got a few years of experience as a personal trainer, plenty of the specializations we have covered lend themselves to this route of career progression.

For instance, if you were to choose sports massage therapy you could eventually open your own facility that offers both SMT and personal training.

Strength and Conditioning 

Because strength and conditioning goes hand in hand with the growth of strength and weight training, this is one of the most financially beneficial personal trainer specializations. 

Because of this, the skills you will have as a strength and conditioning coach will inform and improve your average personal training sessions. 

The average salary for a strength and conditioning coach, according to Glassdoor, is nearly £28,000 which already pushes this above the average for a personal trainer with no specialty. 

Though there’s some variety on how much experience is wanted for these positions, the more you have as a personal trainer, the more your specialities will give you an edge.  

It’s worth bearing in mind, too, that this figure includes entry level positions demanding less experience. The more experience you have, the higher the amount you can expect to be paid. 

The opportunity to work with athletes, sports clubs, as well as in universities means that you can build up to a much higher salary. In fact, the average for working with big teams is somewhere between £40K and £50K!

There’s also different levels you can work at:

1. S & C Intern
2. Graduate S & C coach
3. Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach
4. Academy Strength and Conditioning Coach
5. First Team Strength and Conditioning Coach
6. Head of Strength and Conditioning
7. Director of Strength and Conditioning

Starting salaries for Graduate and Assistant Strength & Conditioning coaching range between £18K and £23K. The higher starting salary means that, with determination and drive, you can easily build your way up and be earning the big teams salary in no time!

Mobile Personal Training

Again, mobile personal training is one of the specialities with the highest earning potentials because it’s not limited by location. 

However, much like being a fitness manager, the highest earning potential comes from being self-employed. This is why it can be difficult to gauge an exact figure. 

You also have the option to be a mobile personal trainer out of a particular gym or facility. This can often be on a freelance basis, but there are some more flexible positions available where you can schedule around existing commitments. 

Hopefully we’ve already shown that your best bet for maximising your income, as well as maintaining some stability, is for you to combine standard personal training with specialities.

This way you will get the most out of your clients. For instance, if you have a Level 3 in Personal Training but your specialty is in pre & postnatal training, you can retain any clients throughout their pregnancies and beyond.

If you want to combine SMT with standard personal training then your specialities will mean you can retain a client even if they’re injured and unable to train. 

You get the idea! It’s all about finding the best combination for you, and where the gap in the market is depending on where you’re based.

The highest paying fitness jobs in the world are, of course, those who have managed to capitalise as much as possible from social media and online. This is why, though very difficult to quantify, all things considering this has the highest earning potential.

Before You Go!

Whether you’re just starting, or looking to reinvent yourself, each of these specializations can be a great way to enhance your career and boost your income. 

Don’t forget, if you’re looking to gain new clients you can do this with OriGym's Level 4 Nutrition qualification!

You can enquire today or have a read through OriGym’s downloadable prospectus to see our more advanced courses!