Pickleball vs Padel: The UK Adoption Tracker (2026 Update)
Pickleball vs Padel: The UK Adoption Tracker (2026 Update)
For the last five years, the UK racket-sports trade press has been telling the same story: padel is the next big thing. Hundreds of millions of pounds of capital have flowed into UK padel court installations on the back of that thesis.
The data, in 2026, says something different. Pickleball is now growing more than seven times faster than padel on UK search volume, has caught up on player base, and — in the very specific metric that matters most for cost-efficient infrastructure — is roughly 5–10× cheaper to deploy per court. Padel isn’t dying. But it isn’t winning, either.
Here’s the comparison.
The headline numbers
| Metric | Pickleball UK | Padel UK | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly active players (2026 estimate) | ~130,000 | ~150,000 | Padel (slightly) |
| YoY player growth | ~100% | ~25% | Pickleball |
| YoY UK Google search growth | 312% | 41% | Pickleball |
| Total UK courts | 720 | 1,400 | Padel |
| YoY court growth | ~50% | ~22% | Pickleball |
| Average court installation cost | £18–35k (outdoor pair) | £35–55k (per court) | Pickleball |
| Average paddle spend | £127 | £155 | Padel (revenue per player) |
| Female participation share | 56% | 28% | Pickleball |
| Average player age | 47 | 38 | (preference question) |
The search-volume story
The single cleanest leading indicator of UK adoption is search demand. Both pickleball and padel were essentially flat in UK Google Trends in 2018. Both started moving in 2020. Then they diverged.
| UK Google Trends index (peak = 100) | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (Q1) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pickleball | 4 | 9 | 22 | 58 | 100 |
| Padel | 31 | 49 | 64 | 78 | 84 |
Pickleball was 4% of padel’s search volume in 2022. As of Q1 2026, pickleball is 19% larger in UK search volume than padel and growing at 7× the rate.
Search lags behind player count by roughly 6–9 months in our experience. The Q1 2026 search reading suggests pickleball player counts will overtake padel player counts inside the UK by mid-2026 — possibly already happening as you read this.
The court-supply story
This is where padel still leads — for now. The UK has roughly 1,400 padel courts vs 720 pickleball courts. But:
- Padel court growth is running at ~22% YoY.
- Pickleball court growth is running at ~50% YoY.
- A single padel court costs ~£35–55k. Four pickleball courts (one tennis-court conversion) costs ~£18–35k.
- Pickleball’s marginal cost per additional player capacity is ~10–20× lower than padel’s.
The current padel court overbuild is starting to show. Operators we’ve spoken to in three cities (Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh) report padel courts running at 60–70% peak utilisation in 2026 vs 95%+ in 2023. The same operators report pickleball-line conversions running at 100%+ utilisation with wait-lists.
Demographics
These are very different sports inside the player base.
| Metric | Pickleball | Padel |
|---|---|---|
| Average age | 47 | 38 |
| Female participation | 56% | 28% |
| Average household income (PickleballOne survey vs LTA Padel data 2025) | £56k | £74k |
| Average distance travelled to play | 7.4 miles | 9.1 miles |
Pickleball is older, more female, and meaningfully more middle-income. Padel is younger, more male, and skewed to higher-income early-adopters who cluster in London and the Home Counties.
The right reading is not “one is better than the other.” It is: these two sports are reaching genuinely different parts of the UK racket-sports market, and the market is large enough to support both.
What the cannibalisation data says
We asked our 500 UK pickleball players whether they used to play padel. 11% did. Of those, 33% say they will play less padel now they play pickleball.
The reverse data — published by LTA Padel in late 2025 — suggests roughly 6% of current UK padel players also play pickleball, and a small minority report planning to play less of either.
Net read: pickleball is taking some demand from padel, but most of pickleball’s growth (89%) is from outside padel. Padel is losing slightly more padel-only players than pickleball is recruiting from padel.
Five takes for the racket-sports industry
- Pickleball is now the larger UK racket-sport opportunity by growth rate. Capital that has been flowing into padel needs to start hedging into pickleball.
- The two sports compete for the same physical real estate. A leisure operator with one indoor hall has to choose. The operator that picks pickleball is choosing higher utilisation, lower capex, broader demographics.
- Pickleball is winning the gender-balance prize. A racket sport with 56% female participation is a fundamentally different commercial proposition for apparel, retail, and clubhouse F&B.
- The pro-tour story is still padel’s. UK padel has stronger pro-tour and TV deal momentum (World Padel Tour, Hexagon Cup). UK pickleball has nothing equivalent yet.
- The narrative is switching. Read the Sky Sports / Sport Industry Group output of 2024 and you’ll find “padel is the next big thing”. Read 2026 output and the centre of gravity is moving.
Methodology
UK player estimates: PickleballOne UK Player Survey 2026 (n=500) and internal modelling for pickleball; LTA Padel UK Participation Report 2025 for padel. Search data: Google Trends (UK only, 2018–Q1 2026), normalised to peak. Court counts: PickleballOne UK Court Database (May 2026) and Padel UK national directory. All figures rounded.
Citation
Source: PickleballOne UK Adoption Tracker 2026. https://pickleballone.co.uk/blogs/learn/pickleball-vs-padel-uk-adoption-2026
Press contact
press@pickleballone.co.uk